‘ You inhabit,’ Rider corrected him. ‘A small world YOU inhabit. So, yeah, I’ve bought a club.’
‘ What sort of place is it, exactly?’
Rider started walking again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the lioness stand up, stretch and pad towards them.
‘ Exactly? A grotty rundown disco with a bar and a late-night food licence… and if I put some money in it I might make some back. Eventually. What’s your interest?’
They were now strolling side by side along the enclosure.
Walking next to them, staring at them and grunting frighteningly was the lioness, her muscles tensing with each step under the tawny coat. Rider couldn’t tell if she was feeling playful or hungry, but the size of her massive jaws and paws made him relieved there was a strong fence between them.
‘ Partnership,’ stated Conroy.
Rider stopped in his tracks. Conroy carried on a few steps before realising he was alone.
The lioness stopped too, lifted her black nose and looked down its length through haughty black eyes.
‘ Fuck off!’ blurted Rider. ‘Why should I want to go into partnership with you?’ He pointed at the lioness who had settled back on her haunches to watch the discussion like a tennis umpire. ‘I’d rather climb in with her.’
‘ Oh, come on,’ began Conroy.
‘ I’ll head back to the car, if that’s all you came to say.’
Rider walked away, leaving Conroy open-mouthed and on the edge of anger. The lioness growled at him, emitting a sound which seemed to emanate from her belly, gathering momentum as it passed through her throat into her mouth. Conroy jumped. He stuck two fingers up at her and said, ‘You can fuck off too.’
He stormed after the disappearing Rider. No one had walked away from him whilst he was talking in the last ten years. People listened to him. If they didn’t, they got something broken.
By the time he caught up with Rider, he’d adopted a pleading tone of voice which held just the merest hint of threat in it. Rider knew his way of speaking well.
‘ Look, John, I expect you’re wondering why I want a piece of action up here, by the sea.’
‘ To peddle drugs, I imagine, which is your main source of income,’ Rider said through the side of his mouth, still walking.
‘ John, stop and fucking listen to me!’ Conroy took hold of Rider’s arm and yanked him to a standstill. Rider halted abruptly, faced Conroy and looked dangerously down at the hand which was wrapped around his upper arm. Then he stared into Conroy’s eyes.
The hand dropped away.
‘ Sorry,’ mumbled Conroy. Good, Rider thought. He’s still afraid of me. ‘I want to explain something.’
‘ You gotta minute.’
‘ I need to expand. I own the east of this fucking county, all the way up from Blackburn to Colne. Clubs, pubs, council estates. All mine, but I need to move on. They’re poor people across there, only so much money. I’m stagnating and Blackpool has got to be the place for my next move. So what better, eh, John? You’ve got a club, and those doss-houses you run… let’s get back together again and make some fucking bread.’
Rider folded his arms defensively and looked into the enclosure at which they were now standing. There was a high wall surrounding a dry moat and a circle of grass with a few trees in the middle of it. On one of the trees sat a huge, Silverback gorilla, arms folded like Rider’s.
Rider couldn’t help but smile.
‘ This place has great potential. Eighteen million visitors every year. Pubs, clubs… that gay scene — those twats love the speed — no real organised stuff here, just two-bit villains with no strategic mind like me. We’ll make a fucking killing. Me and thee… like the old days.’
They were standing more or less shoulder to shoulder, looking at the gorilla as they talked, and he at them, as though listening.
‘ He could be a doorman,’ Conroy laughed.
Rider gave Conroy a sidelong squint. There was something not quite right about this but he couldn’t pin it down. ‘Ron, you’re lying about something here. I can tell when you ain’t telling the truth. Your nostrils flare when you talk.’
‘ Eh? I am not lying, John,’ Conroy said earnestly, his nostrils flaring. Instinctively he put his hand over his nose, realised what he’d done, then self-consciously pulled it away. ‘So what about it? Me and you again?’
Rider sighed, leaned on the outer wall of the enclosure, resting his weight on his hands.
‘ There’s a few things,’ he said easily. ‘First I don’t like you. I don’t like your cop connections or your political ones… they give me the creeps. I wouldn’t go into any deal with you because I don’t think I could ever trust you after the way you shafted Munrow.’
‘ Hey, business is business, John. Not that I’m saying I did shaft him. What is important is that I never shafted you.’
‘ Hm, maybe not — but whatever, I don’t like drugs and I won’t entertain them. It took me five years to get off the sods — and I still want to mainline, even now, stood here, and if I go in with you, I’ll slide back. I want to stay clean. And, as I said, I don’t fuckin’ believe you for some reason. You’re a sneaky bastard and you’re up to something. I can feel it in my piss. So the answer’s no. And you know me. I say something — I mean it.’
Conroy hardened. His jaw line tensed and relaxed a few times. ‘I want in to that gaff of yours, John. Now I’ve asked you nicely. Don’t make me tell you. Nobody says no to me these days.’
Rider stood slowly upright at this. He considered the words uttered by Conroy and their implication.
He spoke, but did not look at Conroy because he felt that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to resist tipping the bastard over the wall in with the gorilla.
‘ You’ve obviously forgotten who you are talking to. Don’t ever threaten me and don’t try something you’ll regret.’
Conroy made no response.
Rider, becoming angry, raised his eyes to the sky and said, ‘Do you understand?’
Again nothing.
Rider’s head swivelled. He looked at Conroy who was standing there as rigid as stone.
Then Rider saw the reason for Conroy’s lack of acknowledgement.
The muzzle of a gun was being pushed hard into the back of Conroy’s head, just under the point where the hair band held his pony tail. Rider, though rusty in such matters, recognised the type of gun immediately — a K frame. 357 revolver, six shot, constructed of stainless steel. He was close enough to read the words Smith amp; W esson stamped on the barrel. It was a type of gun he had once owned illegally, once used and once dealt in. He knew what kind of damage it was capable of inflicting on a human being.
Rider’s eyes followed the barrel to the hand, to the arm, to the person who was holding the gun.
He was a tall guy, youngish, dressed sportingly in a black Reebok tracksuit. He had dark, unkempt curly hair and a three-day growth on his face. Thin, gaunt, he looked as though a good meal would have killed him. His eyes were wide and watery, almost no colour in them, and he sniffed continually. He looked high and excited.
A couple of metres behind him stood a similarly dressed male who was no more than a teenager, dancing on the balls of his feet, agitated. He waved a semi-automatic pistol loosely in front of him, pointing in the general direction of Rider.
Rider’s eyes locked briefly with Curly.
‘ You finished your little speech, hard man?’ he demanded wildly of Rider. ‘Eh? Eh?’ With each ‘Eh’ he jammed the gun harder into Conroy’s skin.
‘ Yeah, finished,’ said Rider. His eyes took in both men as he half-turned to see better.
‘ Good, fuckin’ good,’ snorted Curly, really hyper.
The only thing in Conroy’s favour was that these men were at the peak of a score. People like that made mistakes. They also tended to kill other people, too.
‘ What’s happening?’ Rider said, hoping to establish a dialogue to give him time to think.
‘ Can’t you fucking see? We’ve come to kill this cunt.’ He rammed the gun into Conroy’s head again.
Conroy let out a little squeak.
‘ Oh, right. I see,’ said Rider, nodding his head. He lifted both hands in an open-palmed gesture. ‘You do what you gotta do,’ he said to Curly, who he had now sussed as a rank amateur, as was his pal behind him. Professionals don’t talk, they act. If they had been pros Conroy would be splattered by now. Rider guessed this was their first
