Slammer by Allan Guthrie Read Free Book Online

were way too big for the rest of his face, giving him a sort of crazed look.
    Before they'd spoken on the phone earlier, Glass hadn't thought about the fact he would have to avoid using his real name. But when Mad Will introduced himself it became obvious Glass would have to make up a name for himself too.
    'Jesse,' he said. 'I'm Jesse James.' Well, he was buying a gun.
    No reaction from Mad Will.
    'Mafia vouched for me.' Glass had given Mafia fifty quid and bought him a phone card, asked him to say a few nice words on his behalf. Get things moving. Quickly.
    I have an appointment at the Castle Esplanade at four o'clock. With your brother. I'm in a fucking hurry.
    'Mafia vouched for some guy called Glass,' Mad Will said. 'Not for some Jesse James arsehole.'
    Wasn't the best way to start off, but they'd sorted it out after an awkward minute or so and here they were now, face to face, all nice and friendly, in the sitting room of a flat in a highrise in Niddrie, midday sun streaming through the window, a handgun and a thermos flask of coffee angled on the slightly lop-sided glass table between them, and Mad Will lighting a half-smoked joint.
    The room was as sparsely furnished as a prison cell. The whole block of flats was abandoned, most of the windows boarded up. Presumably squatters had moved in at some point, but it didn't look as if anyone lived here now. Glass expected it was used only for conducting illegal transactions. Not just guns either, by the looks of things. He could see various pills and powder in bags and packets and bottles and blister packs in the open shoulder bag at Mad Will's feet.
    'Regular pharmacy,' Glass said.
    'Guns're a sideline. Drugs are the mainstay. Need anything?'
    Glass hesitated. 'I'm fine, thanks.'
    'You don't dabble?'
    'No.' He used to smoke a fair amount of blow. Everybody did. And he'd done the odd line of coke, and smacked out with some pills at parties. Speaking of smack, he'd even tried that once or twice. Three times, to be precise. Well, if he was being precise, it wasn't smack, but moonrock: a mixture of smack and coke. Only dabbled, though, as Mad Will would put it. Glass was fifteen the first time and his curiosity got the better of his good sense. Second and third times were on consecutive days, a year later, with a ginger-haired girl from Moffat. He left on the third day when she brought out her needle and invited him to feel God caress his insides.
    But since he found out he was going to be a dad, he hadn't touched a thing. Mad Will didn't need to know any of that, though.
    'Fair enough,' Mad Will said. 'If you change your mind, you know who to call.'
    'Thanks,' Glass said again.
    In the bedroom, someone was having sex, loudly. Whether it was a couple, or just a guy on his own, was hard to tell. But either way he sounded as if he was enjoying himself. If Glass hadn't had an illegal arms deal to negotiate, he might not have been able to focus.
    'She's a nice piece,' Mad Will said.
    Glass wondered how to respond but when Mad Will blew out a plume of smoke and picked up the gun Glass realised he wasn't referring to what was happening in the bedroom.
    'Semi-automatic. Single action. Full chamber.' Mad Will pulled back the slide. 'And there's one racked for you.' He ran his pudgy fingers over the grip. 'Made in Poland , you know. Don't see many of those. What do you want to use it for?'
    Something else Glass hadn't expected to answer. Thought he'd been through all that crap with Mafia. What business was it of Mad Will's what the gun was for? Nosy fuckers, these criminals.
    Mad Will stared at him, smoke curling from his spliff. 'What's it for, eh?'
    What the hell was Glass going to say? Shooting grouse? 'Defence,' he settled on. 'Personal defence.'
    'For yourself?'
    'My wife.'
    'Someone giving her a hard time?'
    He wasn't going to repeat his conversation with Mafia. Sod that. He'd said too much already.   Who'd have thought lying was so hard? 'No,' he said. 'It's just that there are a