Lennon sat at his Mexican-style dining table eating microwaved lamb rogan josh. The edge of the Mexican-style chair cut into the backs of his thighs. The set had cost almost five hundred, but he’d got it on finance. He was sure the interest rate would have been scandalous if he’d looked at it. But he hadn’t, just signed the form the salesman put in front of him. They delivered the table and six chairs a few days later, and he’d never eaten a comfortable meal while seated here.
He thought back, searching for the last time anyone else had sat at the table. Months ago, he reckoned, and he couldn’t remember her name. She drank coffee and he drank tea while they barely looked at each other. He took her number even though they both knew he’d never dial it.
The lamb turned sickly in Lennon’s mouth. He swallowed it and pushed the plate away, then washed his palate with a swig of lukewarm tap water. The silence pressed on him with a cold insistence. He could only take his own company for so long, so he cleaned up, changed, and headed into town.
He decided to try the Empire’s basement bar. A blues band did their best for an indifferent crowd mostly made up of students getting an early start on the weekend. Lennon scoped the women and felt every day of his thirty-seven years. He wasn’t quite old enough to be anyone’s father, but maybe a creepy uncle. He ordered a pint of Stella as he wondered where else he could go. The small pang of guilt he’d felt at drawing forty pounds cash on one of his credit cards grew sharper and deeper as he handed a twenty over. His bank account had run dry the day before. Anyone with common sense would wait for pay day rather than spend borrowed money, but common sense and money never occupied the same parts of his mind.
Two girls leaned on the bar beside Lennon. Not young enough to be students, he thought, too well dressed. They both wore the kinds of clothes and jewelry that rich boyfriends or fathers would never buy. They made their own money, probably working in one of the call centers that had sprung up across the city.
“Two Smirnoff Ice,” one of the girls called across the bar.
Lennon held out the ten-pound note he’d just got back in change, forgetting any notion of frugality he might have entertained a few seconds before. “Allow me,” he said.
The nearest girl looked him up and down. “If I wanted my dad to buy my drinks, I’d have brought him,” she said. “Thanks anyway.”
Lennon forced himself to finish his pint before leaving. He phoned Roscoe Patterson to see if he had anything on tonight.
Less than thirty minutes took Lennon to the apartment block overlooking Carrickfergus Marina. Roscoe said nothing when he opened the door to the penthouse flat, and Lennon followed him through the entrance hall to the living room. The shaven-headed, bull-shouldered man took a seat and resumed his computer game. His thick fingers moved over the controller with a curious grace. Uniformed soldiers died under a hail of gunfire on the massive plasma screen, the shiny new Playstation 3 whirring in the cabinet beneath it.
“Sit down,” Roscoe said. “She’s got a punter in. He’ll not be long.” His face creased in an absent-minded grin. “They never are.”
Lennon lowered himself into the leather sofa facing Roscoe. The floor resonated as the surround sound system’s woofer made the most of the game’s explosions.
“The neighbors don’t complain about the noise?” Lennon asked.
Roscoe winked. “Just the once,” he said. “There’s only a couple here during the week, anyway. The rest is holiday lets or weekend places.”
Lennon shifted, trying to get comfortable as his jeans slid across the leather.
“I heard you lifted Dandy Andy,” Roscoe said as he blew someone’s head off.
“That’s right,” Lennon said.
“Good job,” Roscoe said. “He’s a cunt. Will he do time?”
“A little. Not much.”
Roscoe shrugged. “Better than nothing,” he said.
Lennon watched the blurred tattoos on Roscoe’s forearms flex and ripple as he worked the controller. “You know what Rankin’s gripe with Crozier was?”
“Don’t be asking me that,” Roscoe said. “I’m not touting for you.”
“I heard Crozier was palling up with the Lithuanians,” Lennon said.
“He was filling the gap Michael McKenna left when he got his brains blown out. He was supplying the muscle while they supplied the girls.
He was letting them set up their own places on McKenna’s old turf.”
“Know nothing about it,” Roscoe said. “Ah, fuck! Look, I got shot now ’cause of you.”
“So you and your boys are okay with Crozier doing business with the Liths?” Lennon asked. “You know they pay dues to the Republicans, don’t you? Crozier’s putting money in their pockets.”
“Dirty business, that,” Patterson said. “Them Liths are trafficking girls in from all over the fucking place, Russia, Ukraine, all them auld shitty holes. Keeping them doped up so they can have them doing punters for fuck all money. Slaves, like. I don’t hold with that. I deal in quality, not quantity. You pay a bit more, but you know the girl’s there of her own free will, and she’s getting her fair share of the money.
And she’ll be so clean she’ll squeak when you stick it to her.”
“You’re a prince among pimps,” Lennon said.
Roscoe grinned. “I should put that on my business cards. Anyway, so long as I’m turning a pound, Crozier can give the Liths free blowjobs for all I care. And the taigs. No offense, like. Now, either change the subject or fuck off.”
“Fair enough,” Lennon said. “Who’ve you got on tonight?”
“Debbie,” Roscoe said.
“Debbie?”
“Edinburgh Uni. She’s doing her Master’s in commercial law, she tells me. Whatever the fuck that means. I normally just bring her over on weekends, but she’s got some bills to pay. Fucking lovely wee thing, she is. You’ll like her.”
A door opened in the entrance hall, and Lennon heard the rustling of clothes. The shadow of a man, his head bowed, passed the door.
“Everything all right?” Roscoe called.
“Yes, thank you,” a small voice replied.
“Dead on,” Roscoe said. “You can let yourself out.”
The apartment door opened and closed.
“Give her a minute to clean up,” Roscoe said.
“You boys talk amongst yourselves,” Lennon said. “About what’s going on. Who’s doing what to who, that sort of thing.”
“Aye,” Roscoe said. “But like I said, I’m not touting for you. You’re a good friend to have, Jack, but don’t push your luck.”
“Michael McKenna,” Lennon said. “Paul McGinty, too. What do you reckon to all that? The inquiry said it was a feud, all internal stuff. You ever hear anything different?”
Roscoe smiled. “That was a good week,” he said. “My auld da used to say the only good taig was a dead taig. Lot of good taigs that week. No offense, like.”
“None taken,” Lennon said.
Roscoe’s mobile phone beeped. He picked it up and thumbed a button. “She’s ready for you,” he said.
Lennon got to his feet and walked to the door.
“There was one weird thing came of it all,” Roscoe said.
Lennon stopped in the doorway. “What was that?”
“That lawyer, Patsy Toner,” Roscoe said. “They said he lent that bent cop his car, and the cop wound up getting his head took off. They said it was mistaken identity, said the dissidents meant to get Toner. But then the dissidents blew themselves up, problem solved, everything gets back to normal.”
Lennon walked back to Roscoe. “And?”
“Patsy Toner’s a regular with one of my girls. She says he’s in pieces. He still comes to see her, but he can’t manage anything. She’s tried handjobs, blowjobs, stuck her finger up his arse, everything she can think of. Not a fucking thing.”
“I could’ve done without that image,” Lennon said.
“Me too,” Roscoe said, his lip curling. “But you hear worse in my line of work.”
Lennon leaned on the back of Roscoe’s chair. “I’m sure you do, but what’s your point?”
Roscoe shrugged. “Might be nothing, but she told me he turned up pissed off his face one night. He was blathering about how it wasn’t over, they wouldn’t let it go, it was only a matter of time before they came for him.”
Lennon stood upright. “Is that right?”
Roscoe smiled. “Is what right? I didn’t tell you nothing.” He turned back to his game. “I’m not touting for you. Now go and see that wee thing before she gets lonely.”
Lennon patted the other man’s muscled shoulder. “Thanks, Roscoe.”
He went back to the entrance hall. A thin streak of light reached across the carpet from the bedroom door. He rapped the wood with his knuckles, and the door opened. She had shoulder-length brown hair and smelled of strong soap.
“Put a hundred on the dressing table, love,” she said, her Scottish accent easing through her smile. “Then we’ll talk about the options. All right, sweetheart?”
Lennon forced himself to maintain eye contact. “Roscoe and me have an arrangement.”
She stood on tiptoe and called over his shoulder. “Roscoe?”
Roscoe’s voice came back from the living room. “Whatever he wants. I’ll sort you, don’t worry.”
Her face slackened for a moment, whether with contempt or sadness he couldn’t tell. Then it brightened, as if a light behind her eyes had switched on, and her lips parted in a smile that could cut glass. “Whatever you want, darling,” she said.