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  Gore accepted, as he knew he must, with unease. The dull and sorry truth was that he could imagine few words – none from his usual store – that could be of any solace to the Ash clan.

  Chapter V

  FAIR TRADING

  1986–1989

  Stevie commonly found that words failed him. He was happier by far trading in nods and handshakes, for they served just as well. He knew, though, that certain matters had to be broached verbally, if they were not to sit and fester. For some weeks he had wanted words with Dicko. The need sat awkwardly inside, and he shifted it from locker to locker, just as he hopped from foot to foot on the opposite flank of the neon-splashed entrance to Club Zeus. The cold was biting, November of 1986 on its way out, and they were present and correct and properly attired. But something was wrong with the picture. And to fall out – to fight – with Dicko, toe-to-toe, was a bitter thing for Stevie to consider, even if, pound for pound, he reckoned by now that he could burst his old mate.

  A fortnight hence Armstrong the manager had summoned Stevie to his small office, Stevie restive before he sat, knowing the issue would be their policy on recreational narcotics. Dicko, just like Stevie, was under instruction to act on any suspicion of possession or partaking, by search, confiscation and expulsion. It was no science, and such a drill had for months been yielding steadily mounting returns – ever more wraps of speed, fistfuls of pills, small slate-like squares of tack. Dicko assumed charge of their safekeeping, and at the end of each night he gathered Stevie’s takings into a strong-box with his own, so as to pass them to management for disposal. But Armstrong, evidently, hadn’t been having it.

  ‘I’m no fool, Stevie, I know it’s coming in the door, and if I’m not seeing it then the two of you’s have to be doing me a disservice. Cos it’s joint responsibility as I see it.’

  ‘If you’re that bothered,’ Stevie shrugged, ‘get the police.’

  ‘We don’t “get the police”, son,’ Armstrong snapped witheringly.

  ‘What do I do then?’

  ‘You keep an eye on your pal, Stevie.’

  He would be nobody’s pet rat. It was, though, undeniably the case that Dicko had developed certain tendencies. No fashionable door they had ever worked had welcomed unaccompanied lads ill-favoured in the facial department. Dicko, indeed, had a store of rejoinders to send the sad cases on their way. ‘No, no, flower, this ain’t for you, you want the wanking festival down the road.’ Now, though, there were some notably queer-looking rabbits whom Dicko merely bade welcome with a nod and a muttered greeting, even as it was searing Stevie’s lips to step forward with ‘You’re fuckin’ kiddin’, aren’t you, pal?’

  One such was a manchild with a moon face, spectacles and bum-fluff moustache, perennially togged out in a blue tonic suit, white polo shirt and loafers. One night Stevie determined to never let this nerd stray from his sight, and so watched him stand, surveying the dance floor, elbows on the bar, hailed and greeted by umpteen punters, though none lingered long. He sipped the same pint of lager for an hour, yet his trips to the toilet were continual. Finally Stevie tailed him on one such visit, and cleared the toilet of punters with a jerk of his thumb. Then he stooped and saw two pairs of shuffling loafers in the gap under a stall door. He straightened, and – with one, two, three brutal heaves – splintered the door from its hinges. His prey he seized by the throat, got his wallet in his fist, and found that this Mickey Ash had twenty little wraps packed tightly into a zip-pocket. But after shutting time he tossed these into the Tyne, for he couldn’t face calling Dicko out.

  *

  As a team they had prospered, taking fewer gigs for better money, moving into a smarter two-bedroom rental, a new build on the Oakwell Estate out west. Dicko treated himself to a black Nissan, though Stevie still shunted about in a knackered Ford. But the camaraderie seemed to have been leeched out of their friendship, something arctic in its place, like the wind off the Tyne in late November. To Stevie’s mind the draught emanated from one corner. It was all the fault of the drugs.

  In Hoxheath he took on a few casual commissions, cash in hand, commensurate with the hassle. Over a quiet pint in the Gunnery he fell to chatting with the new landlord, fairly tearing what was left of his hair over some radgy Asian called Kumar who was selling drugs in the back bar, and was rumoured to carry an axe strapped to his thigh under loose-fitting pants. Stevie pledged to sort the little problem, and he didn’t have to wait, for that same night Kumar stalked into the pub, a rangy lad with a shaved head and a manic stare. Once Stevie had his throat he was putty. ‘I’ll give you a bit of it, man,’ Kumar protested, and Stevie slapped his face with a stinging report before booting him out onto the seat of his baggy trousers. ‘Come back with your axe, eh, bonny lad?’ he called out into the night, and was cheered to the rafters within. This, Stevie knew, was not how matters would be coming to a head with Dicko.

  The needful conference didn’t come at the door of Club Zeus but after closing time and a nightcap, when they were ensconced once more in the Hoxheath gaff, kettle on. Stevie had no savour for Dicko’s company and was minded to retire. But Dicko bade him sit.

  ‘Look, Stevie, I’m about right for moving on.’

  He had decided to return south, to Bristol from whence he hailed. ‘I’m sick of it, son. It’s small time, this. Anyone shows a bit of initiative, wants to get on, there’s always some numpty wanting to slap ’em down.’

  Watching the shot-putter’s frame slumped in a comfy chair with mug of tea, Stevie decided that this was indeed a man en route to the knacker’s. He was gratified, too, that it was Dicko who seemed to be the one struggling to unload a burden from his chest.

  ‘Stevie, the job we do’s a serious old job. We earn our keep. We should be paid proper. And if we’re watching others we shouldn’t have others watching us. It can’t operate that way.’

  Stevie didn’t like what he was hearing, and decided to ignore it.

  ‘Well, I’m right sorry you’re off, Dicko man.’

  ‘I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch with this place, flower.’

  ‘Nee bother. Reckon I’ll keep it on.’

  ‘You planning on moving that blonde bird in?’

  Karen was Stevie’s current girl, a somewhat unlikely conquest, a regular at Zeus amid a gaggle of similar girls. She was a cashier at a building society, long of leg, all teeth and yellow mane, her complexion too the colour of turmeric from regular sun-bed sessions. She had seemed stand-offish, until Stevie gave her some old chat and found that her poise was about as true as her tan. ‘Me big maaan,’ she would drawl as she draped herself over his chest after a third cocktail.

  No, Karen would not be moving in.

  The final goodbye when it came was brisk and tense. Stevie helped Dicko fill his car, unsure – though, frankly, unbothered – as to whether his old comrade saw him as Judas. But their parting handshake, Stevie was sure, had an edge to it.

  *

  Batman and Robin was a tough act to follow, and Stevie didn’t bother to seek a new partner, simply permitting his regular venues to pair him with new hired hands. There came then a succession of mad young blokes, and Stevie began to feel like Clint Eastwood, breaking in the rookies. His technique had reached a level that in working a room – amid the heat, the boozy aggression and egotism – he glided serenely above it all. It pained him, though, to find there was little he could tell his younger counterparts, or, rather, little to which they listened. Some had the vexing habit of telling him what for, then moving on. It dawned upon Stevie that the venues were no longer the real sources of employment – rather, they preferred to contract private firms. Stevie didn’t want to be Dicko the Second, the big lunk overtaken by events. So he asked around, made some calls and was taken on without fuss by Titanium Security, appointed supervisor to a ‘mobile unit’ of three. Since the units seemed to favour in-house tags, he chose ‘Team Sharky’.

  The first assignment was a pub in Battle Field that wanted to shed its belligerent el
ement so that the place be more amenable to college students, whom the landlord fancied his best customers. Stevie duly steamed in, grabbed some collars, banged some heads, made the toerags unwelcome. But the students who began to slouch through the doors he found he didn’t care for one bit. The landlord told Stevie quite sharply that he didn’t want them searched, gallingly, since there were more than a few – bright-eyed, talking an incessant stream of shit – to whom Stevie would have gladly handed out a pasting. It began to gnaw at him that he was no longer his own man. He retained his patch at Club Zeus, yet on inspection of the Titanium pay-slip he saw that his nut – less tax and National Insurance – was less than previous. He could see that much.

  As the summer of 1988 dwindled, Stevie came late and a bit drunk to a dinner-date with Karen. In his heart, he knew, the princess had metamorphosed into something of a nag. He had been dazzled by hair and suckered by fragrance, for she was less than the sum of her parts, full of pointless wishes and demands. On this night she would not take even her customary glass of Mateus Rosé, and when Stevie told her pointedly that she was as much fun as a hole in the road, she appeared to puff like an adder and spat, ‘That’s cos I’m fuckin’ pregnant, man.’

  He had never pictured himself as a father, nor Karen as a mother, not given the sum of her outgoings on cosmetics and vodka-based cocktails. For her part, she let him know that her mam and her friends thought this turn of events a tragedy, and her boss at the building society had looked fit to choke. ‘Am I the last fuckin’ one to knaa then, Karen?’ Stevie growled, the kettle of his temper starting to rattle. He had to remove her from the restaurant by some duress, and their exchanges back at her flat were no more tender.

  The months that followed were joyless. While Karen bulged steadily, Stevie paid the rent of two men, his shifts too relentless for him to find a new lodger. He was out front at Zeus one cold Friday night in January, an hour shy of opening, and he could feel a stinking cold coming on, his back stiff, feet leaden, mouth like sandpaper. Then he saw them, coming on foot from a way down the Quayside, four men in hats and hoods walking abreast, built like weightlifters. Before they reached the door Stevie had radioed his back-up for the night, Anthony, a short but tenacious lad from Cullercoats. And then the leader of the foursome declared himself.

  ‘All change, Stevie, all change, son. You not been telt? This is our door now, me and these uns.’

  ‘You reckon? Maybe I should get Armstrong down.’

  ‘He’s not the boss, Stevie. You’ll not get owt off him. New ownership, see. So you and your midget want to step aside now, get on your way, like, there’ll not be any bother. If you want bother, we’ll fucken burst ye.’

  As Stevie glanced from lunkhead to lunkhead, saw the fists clenching and the ears peeled for the word ‘Go’ – as he accounted for Anthony’s position, and the usual computations whirred through his brain – the desire to simply turn and walk away rolled right through him, boldly as never before. He would swap his kingdom now for ten hours’ sleep and a mug of tea, no stress and no fuss. It was, by any reckoning, a tenth-rate kingdom that could be usurped by four such ratbags. But it was in this sure sense of how the tale would get told in all the pubs round town that Stevie suddenly felt his pride revolt.

  The team leader he annihilated with four lightning rights. Even off-colour, he had his club-hammer hands. Now they would see his stamina too. He bawled at Anthony, who made himself useful, if only by drawing some fire. They threw bodies onto Stevie, but none could get behind him or manage to restrain him. He took a succession of uppercuts and belly-blows but never fell, and with fists and feet and elbows he made himself the last man standing. A police vehicle was pulling up by the time the last of the foursome limped away, cursing.

  When they were gone, Stevie sought Armstrong for a private interview. He wasn’t going to pound on a fellow so much punier, but he made sure he got him against a wall, his frame occluding all light and means of escape. ‘Steve, you know me,’ Armstrong babbled, ‘I wouldn’t have had it like that for the world. It’s not me, man, my hands are tied, the owner got himself a new partner, he put some money down, he’s the one said how it had to be.’

  They made it through that night. It was a sort of a buzz. But when the adrenalin receded, Stevie felt despondency creep back. Who was there to trust?

  *

  He was loyal to the shed that was Morton’s of Wallsend, no turncoat for the fancy new gym near St James’s Park where space got wasted on Aerobics for Women. He was cooling his muscles on the seat of the pec-deck when a pair of chestnut brogues planted themselves on the mat before him. He looked up into the small smile of a flash character, musky with aftershave, his tanned temples shining about his widow’s peak. Even indoors he wore his camel-hair coat.

  ‘Another heavy shift, eh, Stevie?’

  Roy Caldwell had a Scots burr that conjured in Stevie some trace of his granddad Corbett. Dicko had introduced the two of them once, and he knew the guy to be a purveyor of cheap steroids, though some of the other lads had taken to calling him ‘Mr E’. But a peddler, that much was for sure.

  ‘Eh, but there’s not a harder man than you in here, is there, Stevie?’

  ‘You wanna suck us off or summat?’

  ‘Ha. No, son, point of fact I fancy talking some business. About you and your team. “Team Sharky”. Isn’t that right?’

  After Stevie had showered and quit the shed, Caldwell was waiting outside in pale sunlight at the wheel of a black BMW. ‘Shall we take lunch at Altobello? Aye, I think we shall …’

  They drove down the Fossway, through Byker and onto the City Road toward the Quayside. At the restaurant they were seated across a crisp white tablecloth. Caldwell ordered Frascati and fizzy water. ‘Nothing too good for the working class,’ he declared breezily. ‘It wants a bit more of this, Newcastle. Good upmarket places. For the right people.’

  Stevie had pledged himself to silence. Caldwell only smirked, and surveyed the airy cream-hued dining room. ‘You see that lot over there?’ He gestured toward an expansive table of eight men in suits. ‘The good burghers of Newcastle. See, I spy a pair of politicians, two big union guys. A contractor. Him in the specs is an architect, I’ll bet. Gadgy with the sideburns is the crookedest builder on Tyneside. Wouldn’t you like to know what they’re cooking up? Would you look at them, but? Little piggies with their snouts in the trough. Bald-headed bastards … No offence, son, I see you shave your head, not like that bunch of Bobby Charltons.’

  Stevie ordered the spag bol without cheese, Caldwell the osso buco.

  ‘How long you been doing the doors now, Stevie?’

  For the first time in his life, Stevie reckoned it up mentally. ‘Nine year come March.’ That was quite a passage – a long old shift on his feet, and he seemed to feel the cold more these days.

  ‘Tough old gig to stay on top of, eh? Still like your work, do you?’

  ‘S’alright. I’m used to it. There’s nowt scares us.’

  ‘Right. And the money?’

  ‘S’alright. I’ve enough for what I want.’

  ‘“Enough”, but. Is that really enough? Man of your talent? Wouldn’t you rather have a bit more lying spare?’

  Stevie shrugged. ‘The job’s the job.’

  ‘Aye, well, it is and it isn’t.’ Caldwell sighed. ‘It’s coming along a bit at night, this town. I see it, in my line. You must see it too.’

  ‘What’s your line then?’

  ‘I’ve a portfolio of interests. Entertainment venues. Leisure pursuits. Like I say – I get a different feel now, for the going out in Newcastle. It’s not just drunken beggars with their bellies out down the Bigg Market. Not any more. You’ve better places, with a nice wee buzz about them. Lads and lassies all together. There’s money in that. That’s why I just bought out one of the boys in Club Zeus.’ And Caldwell held Stevie’s eye. ‘Fact is, it was some of my lads called on you at Zeus the other night. My soldiers …’

  Stevie placed both fists on
the table. The surroundings were not conducive, and he had to suppress his rush, keep his voice even.

  ‘Threaten me, would you? Think you can do that, ye bollox?’

  ‘Stevie, please. It was totally wrong, I know that now, and I want to apologise to you. Sincerely. It was tactless and stupid of me, and I’m truly sorry you were put out.’

  Dead-eyed, interested, Stevie watched Caldwell shift in his seat.

  ‘The thing about that place … I’ve looked at it top to bottom, I know what it needs. New management for one thing. You running the door – that’s a definite. You’re a fierce bit of kit, no question. I think you can play a bigger field, but. You’re wasted there. What I’d want, really, is you watching over a load more of my interests. See, in my line you’ve got to have soldiers. And I see you as a general, Stevie.’

  Stevie sat back, content that this was a genuine show of respect, though Caldwell’s eyes retained a critical distance.

  ‘I mean, what’s your collateral in life, Stevie? You’re just living on that muscle of yours. If you’ll excuse me – you should use your headpiece, son, get the profit you deserve. You should have your own firm.’ And Caldwell wiped his mouth with a napkin, shaking his head as to say this much was academic. ‘Here’s my proposition. I help you set up. Invest in you. I don’t just want to be paying you commission to stand on a door, see. Paying you to look the other way.’

  ‘I don’t look the other way, I look straight ahead of wuh.’

  ‘Right. I hear you. But hear me out, son. What are you taking home a month now? I’ll double that just for starters. I’m talking about you being your own boss. My end is, you sell me your services, across the board. I’m wanting a monopoly on your time, near enough. But like I say, I’ve got a lot of interests.’

  ‘I’d be working for you?’