Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

Sparks twitches, jitters, keeping time to the beat no one else can hear. OK, so he likes a wee smoke every now and then, the odd pipe, a wee syringe or two, but who doesn’t? No’ his fault, is it? Nah, Mum was an alky, wasn’t she? And Dad was a junkie. That’s genetics. Gee-net-tick. Tock. Ticktock. Tick-tock.

Stand still you daft bastard and concentrate.

Force the twitches to stop. Stand dead-still under the streetlight.

A car goes past. A seagull screeches.

More silence.

Fucking cold when you’re standing still.

The car does a three-pointer at the end of the road, then heads back towards him. Big black fucker. Headlights for eyes. Staring. Making all them snowflakes shine.

Sparks’s knee twitches.

The big car stops by the kerb right in front of him and the window slides down. Woman looks out: blonde, no’ bad looking. If Sparks wasn’t spoken for, he’d probably do her, you know? But his girlfriend’s a jealous bitch…

Blondie says, ‘Looking for someone.’ Sounds posh, doesn’t she: like something off the telly. English. Nothing wrong with that, long as she’s got the cash.

‘Yeah? Who?’ Sparks tells his knee to stand the fuck still, but it’s off on its own, taking no prisoners.

‘Charlie about?’

‘Might be. Who’s asking?’

She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a couple of notes. Holds them up and peers at them. ‘Charles Darwin and…Sir Edward Elgar.’

Sparks curls his top lip. ‘Fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Thirty quid.’

Nod. Yeah, that’s more like it. He does a quick calculation in his head, totting up the number of wrappers and the change from thirty. Always shite at arithmetic at school, you know? Much better now, yeah, like Carol Fucking Vorderman with the old arithmetic, fractions, and shite like that. Teachers want to make kids better at maths? Learn them how to do a decent drug deal: Wee Jonnie has a sixth of an ounce, and Sarah wants an eighth — how stoned will she be, and how much change does she get from twenty and a handjob?

Blondie’s looking at him like he’s supposed to know the answer to some fucking question he wasn’t even listing to.

Sparks spits a chunky lump of yellow into the snow at his feet. ‘Thirty gets you two.’

Not really: thirty gets you three, it’ll be two for Blondie and one for Sparks. Market economy. Thatcher and Blair’s fuck-you Britain.

The door cracks open and Blondie steps out into the snow. Holds up Elgar and Darwin. ‘How do I know it’s any good?’

He sniffs, spits again. ‘Calling us a lying cunt?’

Blondie looks back over her shoulder. ‘Am I calling him a lying cunt?’

Car’s back door opens and fucking Elvis steps out. ‘Looks like a lying cunt to me.’ Elvis with a Geordie accent. Wye-aye man, am all shook oop, like. Big bastard though.

Sparks takes a step back, but Blondie’s already there. Right behind him. Bump.

He gives a wee squeal, flinching like a spaz. Calm the fuck down and take charge. Sparks clears his throat, turns round and gives her the evil. Asserts his authority. ‘Thirty gets you two.’

Blondie nods, reaches into her pocket and comes out with a pair of leather gloves. Doesn’t want to touch the merchandise, doesn’t want to get her English bitch hands dirty.

While she’s doing it, Sparks sneaks a good hard stare at her tits. Not bad.

Elvis taps him on the shoulder, but Sparks ignores him, keeps his eyes on the perky prize. Licks his lips. Thinks about his girlfriend snaking her way through his bloodstream, bringing the good times with her.

Something hard bumps into his back, just above the waist of his trousers. And then the pain, stabbing out from his right kidney. Waves of jagged ice, throbbing fire. ‘Fuck…’ Knees give way. But a thick arm whips round his throat, squeezing.

Sparks’s dirty fingernails scrabble at the leather sleeve.

Blondie draws back her fist and slams it into his belly.

Breath splutters out of Sparks’s mouth. Then she does it again.

His stomach muscles scream. It’s like being sick a thousand times, all in one go.

Sparks tries to say something. Threat. Plead. Prayer. Doesn’t matter, something. His feet skitter on the slippery pavement, then Elvis’s arm loosens off and Sparks drags in a broken-glass breath.

‘Ayafucker…’

Blondie pats him on the cheek. ‘Who’d you get your stuff from, Sweaty?’

Sparks’s eyes flash left and right. No one. Not a fucking soul. Where’s the bloody plod when you actually needed the cunts?

‘I don’t…’ His voice comes out all hoarse and squeaky. ‘I’m no’ sweaty, I’ve got a thermostat thing and-’

This time her fist snaps his head back, fire and pepper exploding in his nose. Knives digging into his face.

‘Fucksake…Bleeding all over me jacket!’

And then Sparks is on the ground. Coughing, spluttering, blood making Ribena-stains in the white snow. Jesus, that hurts…

Something sharp cracks into his ribs. A boot. Then another one. They’re going to kill him. The fuckers are going to kick him to death on some shitty street down the docks. Every breath is like glass, slashing across his lungs.

‘Sweaty,’ says Blondie, panting. ‘Sweaty Sock: Jock. Honestly, how ignorant are you?’

And then her boot cracks into his ribs again.

Tony watches Julie kick the living shit out of the stick-thin junkie. Doesn’t know when to leave well alone, that one.

He’s not moving any more. Not on his own, only when Julie slams her foot into his ribs. A twitch. Reflex.

She bends double, hands on knees, back rising and falling, breath whoomphing out in big steamy clouds. She points at the body on the pavement. ‘Check his…check his pockets…’ Puff, pant, puff, pant.

Neil frisks the guy. ‘Eight wrappers, couple ounces of blow, and about…’ He rifles his fingers through a small bundle of notes. ‘Hundred, hundred and twenty quid?’

Julie sticks her hand out. ‘Give me a wrapper.’

She stands up straight, unfolds the little tinfoil package, peers at the contents, then marches over and thrusts it through the open car window. ‘Tony?’

Sigh.

He takes the wrapper. Looks like it could be anything: flour, icing sugar, rat poison. Tony licks the end of his pinkie, sticks it in the powder, then sticks it in his gob and rubs the stuff along his gums.

‘Fucksake…’

It fizzes up, bitter and frothy. Tony spits out the driver’s window, leaving a seagull-stain that bubbles and drips down the black paintwork. Howchs, spits again. He’s got that familiar teeth-numbing buzz, but it’s barely there.

Another gob spatters into the snowy tarmac. ‘Fucking bicarbonate…’

Julie sticks the boot in a couple more times.

‘You water down this shit yourself, or did it come prefucked?’

The junkie doesn’t — can’t — say anything, so Julie tries to break a few more ribs with those cowboy boots of hers.

Thump.

Thump.

‘Last chance, Sweaty.’

But Tony’s stopped listening. He’s got that old familiar feeling. Might start with froth and spitting, but it ends up like a warm hand cupped round your balls. Probably won’t last long, it’s been cut so much, so Tony checks Julie and Neil are still busy with Junkie-Boy, before scarfing the last of the wrapper.

He licks the tinfoil clean. Doesn’t mind that it froths up on his tongue. Just gets it into the bloodstream all the quicker, doesn’t it?

Tony settles back in his seat, grips the steering wheel. Belches. Lets it all wash over him, as Julie and Neil get to work on the guy’s arms and legs.

Well, every job has its perks.