Down to the Mancunian Way, through the underpass with its strange cobbled hillocks – some kind of urban design feature – and up into Hulme. Junk walked everywhere. He kept his head down as he took his long stepping strides, his hands in the pockets of his snorkel jacket and his waterproof satchel dangling at his back. To the right, just out of sight, was his own flat. Beyond were the remains of the Crescents, the huge blocks that, uninhabitable or squatted, had lately been demolished. On the left, slung over Princess Park Way, was the narrow footbridge where gangs would wait at night to tax crossing pedestrians. On the far side was Junk’s lock-up, a garage he had rented from a small ad in a free paper. He only visited his lock-up once a week and only ever in the early morning when no one was around to see him. He found that most people liked to get to bed by five or six a.m.
Junk reached shelter at Moss Side Shopping Centre. Across Hulme and Moss Side, the rain was coming down in heavy sheets like the lead lining around a casket. He put his hand to the base of his pony tail and squeezed down until the water ran off the end. He would have put his hood up, but he knew he looked like a fool when he did that. He checked the fastener on his satchel. The ounce of amphetamine sulphate, twenty-five grammes, was safe and dry; snapped shut, as an extra precaution, inside a video case labelled Straw Dogs. That was why Junk had visited his lock-up that morning: to fetch the speed and measure it out with his plastic jug. There had looked to be a couple of kilos left in the fridge, hidden at the back of the garage under a tarpaulin. It was almost all gone. Was that good or bad? Fuck knows.
He had always thought that he might be tempted, but had never once touched as much as a speck of his secret speed stash. It would be twelve years now, about that, since he had last taken amphetamines. Although he still hadn’t put the weight back on again.
Junk trotted past the few working shops and the empty stores between them. He re-entered the rain on Moss Lane East. The gym where he was meeting his gangsta connection was directly to his right. He always felt stupid as he walked inside. It wasn’t just that he was white, or even that he was so thin, but somehow he felt he was an insult to the boys who trained there. They worked at their repetitions, counting under their breath as they lifted, jerked, pulled or punched. Junk grew self-conscious of his own irregular rhythms, his skittery habits that grew out of an excessively nervous system.
Junk tried to make himself inconspicuous as he sat down on a bench, watching a sparring session and waiting for the Taz-Man and his posse to show.
The two boys in the ring were really slamming into each other. An old man with a strong Jamaican accent, pork-pie hat and a Fila sweatsuit was jumping around in excitement, shouting instructions through the ropes. Neither of the two boys could be listening. How could they? They were hammering away, they didn’t have time to listen. Junk stared ahead until he went blank.
It was strange, last night in the WARP, believing that he recognised Yen’s woman. A thing like that could come out of nowhere, a retinal snapshot that you’d see once and be incapable of erasing; extra proof that your mind was never quite your own. She had not seen him, even when she brushed past him on her way to the cab. Another snapshot, the tiger skin seatcovers at the back of the old Nissan. Junk had watched through the open door, as Yen and the Hispanic woman got inside. And then another flash as the driver turned his head to check the passing traffic and Junk caught sight of the tiger skin headrest above the driver’s seat. Vibrant orange, over-printed black; like the robe draped over the blue corner post ahead of him. No, not quite like that. The boxer’s robe was silk, napless and smooth. The taxi seats were acrylic fur.
The Taz-Man’s voice came from somewhere off to Junk’s blind side, ‘The Junkmeister. How’re you doing, you all right or what?’
Junk jerked round. ‘Yeah, I’m all right, Taz.’
The Taz-Man stood at the entrance to the changing room. He filled the bottom half of the doorway; other members of the ConCho Heavy were visible above his head. Junk stood and walked over when he was beckoned.
The Taz-Man had taken a seat on the double bench at the centre of the changing rooms. Three members of his posse gathered around him. Towards the far wall, there was a boy wrapped in a towel, steam coming off his wet shoulders as he looked through his locker. The Taz-Man looked over to his lieutenant. ‘Tell him to do one.’ He nodded at the boy. A moment later, the boy was shivering in the main room of the gym, skipping up and down in just a towel. Trying not to catch a chill.
The Taz-Man said, ‘Look at him. Fucking Batty Boy, couldn’t fight Chewie’s sister.’
The Taz-Man’s lieutenant was saying, ‘No, couldn’t fight my baby sister.’
‘I don’t know why he shows round here.’
‘Fucking Batty Boy.’
A locker to the Taz-Man’s left had the ‘C’ sign of the ConCho Heavy sprayed on the door. The Taz-Man rapped it. ‘Subtle eh? Open it up, Chewie.’
Chewie took a key to the heavy duty padlock. The guns inside hung from hooks by their shoulder straps. There were loose magazines and assorted handguns piled at the bottom of the locker.
‘Sweet, eh? Fucking bootcamp, this. Chewie’s the quartermaster. You’ve come in the middle of us planning a mission.’
Junk said, ‘I’ve come at the time I always come.’
‘It’s sweet. Just letting you know what kind of motherfuckers we turning into. Every month, you come down and we’re a little more fucked up than the last time. Soon we going to be as crazy as you.’
Junk looked back in the locker. The Taz-Man was right about one thing: every month they were more fucked up.
‘Now you seen it, we’ll go and do the dirty deal. What you got for me this month?’