The Make

left you in charge of Alfie, and what happened? I think you remember, Lefty. You fucked up. That’s what happened. You lost my boy, and I’ve been deprived of his company. I’ve missed my boy, you know. Missed him bad.’

‘I know you have, Deano, and I’m sorry for that. But now I’m going to put it right for you, okay? I’ll put it right tonight. No worries.’ The sweat was cascading down Lefty’s face.

Shit, he wanted out of here.

Deano straightened suddenly and struck the desk with both shovel-like hands, palms down. He nodded and beamed at Lefty; but it wasn’t a friendly smile. It was a smile the crocodile gives to the wildebeest a split-second before it traps its head and crunches down with killing force.

‘I know you’re going to put it right for me, Lefty. You know how I know?’

Lefty shook his head dumbly. His eyes skittered sideways and landed on the boy like a meat fly finding flesh. Why didn’t the noise wake him? shot through Lefty’s butane-addled brain. The noise of Deano’s hands hitting the desk had made him half shit himself with fright, but the slumbering boy hadn’t moved a muscle.

Now Lefty’s attention was divided between Deano, who was getting to his feet, and the boy. Sleeping too soundly. Lefty was suddenly very worried about that.

Deano’s eyes followed Lefty’s darting glance as he came around the desk.

‘Oh yeah,’ he said, looking at the sleeping boy with a sigh. ‘That. It’s unfortunate, Lefty, but what can I say? Sometimes I don’t get the pure stuff; sometimes some cocksucker adulterates it and, I’m afraid, well, a person gets a hot dose and then . . .’ Deano put his fingers to his head and made a loud noise, like a pistol shot.

Lefty jumped.

Oh shit, I want out of here, he thought in terror.

The boy. His eyes went to the boy again, and yes the boy was pale, very pale, why hadn’t he seen that before? The unblemished skin of his face had a blue tinge to it. ‘You see, Lefty, accidents can happen,’ Deano went on, approaching him. Lefty stepped back, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run.

‘Oh my fuck . . .’ he murmured under his breath, and he understood now, he knew what he had walked in on. He was sharing the room with a psychopath and, yes, he had always known that when he was in Deano’s company, but he was also sharing the room with a corpse.

‘Yeah, I can see you understand, Lefty, and that’s good, because I’ve got a little job for you.’ Now Deano was right in front of him: huge, threatening, terrifying. Deano reached out one massive hand and clapped Lefty companionably on the shoulder. ‘Now, what I want you to do Lefty—’ he indicated the dead boy with a nod – ‘is get rid of that. Okay?’

‘Oh hell . . . Deano . . .’ Lefty was shaking his head. He knew he’d done something bad to that taxi driver, but he’d been on a bender and he hadn’t been too sure of what was happening; but he was sure now – he wasn’t too jazzed to know that he didn’t want to handle a corpse tonight, not if he could avoid it.

‘Now come on, Lefty my boy,’ said Deano reassuringly, as if talking to some dumb animal. He squeezed Lefty’s shoulder, drew him in against the huge heat and bulk of him. Lefty shut his eyes and prayed for deliverance. ‘You tidy up that little mess for me – and make sure you do it right, you got that? – then you get Alfie and you bring Alfie back to his papa, okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Lefty gasped out. He opened his eyes and Deano’s big bowling-ball of a head was inches from his own, the shark-black eyes staring at him. He could see every pore on Deano’s huge fat cheeks, was drowning in Deano’s distinctive and downright repulsive smell, a noxious mixture of strong cologne and old, stale sweat. ‘Sure, Deano. I’ll go get the car, bring it round the side.’

‘Yeah. That’s fine, Lefty.’ Deano just stood there, still clasping Lefty’s shoulder, staring into his frightened eyes. ‘Only before you do, I want to show you something.’

Oh no, just let me get out of here, thought Lefty, panicking now. He had decided that he was just going to take off, just run as far and as fast as his legs would take him; he didn’t want to be handling any more dead people. And as for returning Alfie to his proper owner, well fuck that. Gordon could tell this fat motherfucker if he wanted to, but Lefty promised himself that he was out of here.

‘Show me what?’ asked Lefty, gulping, sweating, feeling sick and craving a fix and wanting out so badly he was dangerously near to just wrenching himself out of this bastard’s hot grasp and running until he could run no more.

‘Just a little something,’ said Deano, and he was leading Lefty across the room with an arm around his shoulder. Lefty couldn’t do anything but go where he was bid. Deano stopped at a door behind and to the left of the desk. He opened it and pushed Lefty into the doorway.

Lefty heard a cry. But he was staring into darkness, and could see nothing.

Deano reached around the frame and found the switch. The light came on strong, vivid, almost blinding after the darkness. Lefty blinked. It was a storeroom, painted white, no more than six feet by eight. There was nothing in it but a chair, and

Oh Jesus oh God oh no

tied to the chair, sitting there gagged and bound and with tears of fear and dread springing from her eyes, was Lefty’s mother.

‘Holy shit!’ sprang from Lefty’s lips. He surged forward. ‘Ma . . . oh Jesus, don’t . . . Ma . . .’

Deano grabbed Lefty and flung him back against the wall of the storeroom. Lefty’s mother let loose a strangled half-scream. Lefty found himself staring straight into Deano’s eyes from inches away. Deano wasn’t smiling any more.

‘Now see, Lefty? I took out a little insurance. You were taking so long to find my boy that I started to think, you know what? That Lefty’s a junkie and he’s a screw-up, so I’m going to set a little something aside just in case he thinks he can walk away and not deliver what he’s promised.’

Lefty was shaking his head frantically. ‘No, Deano!’ he shrieked. ‘I wasn’t going to walk away, I swear.’

‘Good. That’s what I like to hear. Now.’ Deano yanked Lefty away from the wall and flung him back through into the office. Ignoring Lefty’s mother, he switched off the light in the storeroom and closed the door on her.

‘Ma . . .’ Lefty moaned, and started back towards the door. Deano caught him and cuffed him hard across the face. Lefty fell back.

‘You’ll get your ma when you’ve done the cleaning-up here and when I’ve got Alfie safe back with me. You got that, boy? That all clear enough for you?’

Lefty nodded, half crying with terror and anxiety now. His ma was a good woman; she didn’t deserve this. He had to do what Deano said. Get rid of the dead boy. Bring Alfie in. Then he’d get her out of here, and he’d make it up to her, it would all be cool. He would make it cool.

‘Clear?’ roared Deano.

Lefty jumped. ‘Yeah, Deano. I swear it. It’s clear.’

‘Good.’ Deano flung Lefty from him in disgust. ‘Now go get your car.’

Chapter 52

Lefty felt like he had taken a wrong turning somewhere, and now everything was chaos. It was as if he was trapped in one of those crazy computer games where you had to overcome this obstacle to face another one, then another, then another; and if you didn’t triumph every time then you lost the game and you were fucked, the dragon would eat you, you would be dead.

He went to fetch his car, a beaten-up old BMW, thinking that this was not good, that DNA evidence would be all over him, and not Deano. Deano had killed the boy, overdosed him, so why the hell should Lefty have to incriminate himself to save Deano’s stinking rotten skin?

But he had to. Lefty was crying and shaking and gasping, knowing he had to do what Deano said or the consequences would be beyond bad.