meet up?’
Mac had said she’d called. This made two calls inside a week. Something wasn’t right here. Far as I knew all the solicitors’ dealings were over; there was a decree absolute sitting at home to prove it.
‘What’s up, Debs?’
‘No, it’s nothing like that. Nothing’s up at all. Really.’ She was a bit too quick with her answer.
‘Debs, you can’t kid a kidder.’
Silence.
‘I just thought… Well, first off I forgot you were so suspiciousminded, Gus.’ Her voice started to tremble. ‘Look, if you don’t want to-’
I cut in: ‘Gimme a place, Debs — I’m there already.’
The bar was empty, save for Mac and Hod. For some reason Mac was all tarted up like a carnival, Fonzie- style leather jacket and a retro Scotland shirt, Argentina ’78 if I wasn’t mistaken. Had seen it on Archie Gemmell.
I slunk in unnoticed, to catch them taking down one of the pictures beside the snug — my favourite one, the dogs playing snooker. It was like an episode of Chucklevision minus the ‘To you, to me’ bit. What talk there was hit high on the intellectual scale.
‘See they caught that Naked Rambler guy again,’ said Hod.
‘You’re shitting me — wasn’t he just booked?’
‘Oh yeah, this was after, in the meat wagon coming from the court.’
Mac stopped in his tracks. ‘One minute. Let me get this straight: he’s been done umpteen times, and locked up, then gets out and strips off again?’
‘I dread to think how much of our taxes have been wasted on this.’
I laughed, moved towards the bar. ‘Fuck, I hope they never bring Question Time round this way.’
Mac turned. ‘It’s Indiana Jones… How was your trip to the badlands?’
‘Useful.’
I filled a glass with Jack Daniel’s, then threw it back. Mac came over, took a chair at the bar while I poured out a pint of Guinness. He looked pissed off; always did when we were short of punters.
‘Have you been at the Old Spice, Mac?’ I said.
‘It’s called making an effort, for the customers.’
I laughed.
‘Have you told him about the pub?’ said Hod.
‘About your rescue package?’ Hod had cash to spare; he wanted to help put the Holy Wall back on the map. I didn’t fancy the idea. I knew Hod’s plans would include a glass-topped bar, Bacardi Breezer promotions and, worse, atmospheric lighting.
Mac sneered. ‘Oh no… let’s see, about our plans to stock Regal as well as B amp;H.’
‘What’s on the table then? Apart from what looks like, if I’m not mistaken, a Jack Vettriano print to replace my dogs, which, for the record, ain’t happening. This is a drinking man’s pub, not some poncey George Street style bar.’
Hod stepped between us. ‘Gus, we’re gonna have to put our heads together on this one. The pub’s going down.’
This was a hurt. It was Col’s pub, in memory anyway. I supped my pint. ‘Later, eh. I’ve just escaped Deliverance territory and I’m mightily relieved not to have a length of hillbilly parked in my farter… The pub problems can wait.’
I took a stool at the bar and immediately wigged out. An almighty scuffle, then a blur of black came running across the floor to me.
‘ Fucking hell!’
Mac laughed his heart out, spacehopper guttage going up and down, as the dog I’d rescued jumped into my lap and started to lick at my face.
‘Whoa! Down, boy, down, down.’
‘Think he’s pleased to see you,’ said Mac.
I lifted the dog, put him on the ground. He jumped up again.
‘Holy crap… let me have some peace. Can’t a man get a pint?’
Mac lifted the dog away, placed him in a basket behind the bar.
‘What the hell’s that doing here?’ I said, pointing to the new addition to the Wall.
‘Where else is he gonna go? Vet said it was here or the pound.’
I shook my head. ‘So we’ve got a dog now?’
Mac smiled. ‘Aye, looks that way.’ He bent down, patted the pooch on the head. It licked his hand. ‘Friendly wee fella, isn’t he?’
‘After his last owners, guess we’re an improvement.’
A bark. Loud one.
‘I think he agrees.’
I wasn’t sure a dog was what we needed right now; I sure as hell wasn’t up for ownership. Mac could take him walkies. I’d always fancied a dog, a real mutt — man, they’re loyal. But something about the current state of my life told me any more responsibility was a bad idea. I sunk my Guinness, gave the glass to Mac, said, ‘Pint of the usual.’
‘Usual it is.’
The dog got out of his basket and came to sit at my feet. Put those big chocolate eyes on me again. I looked away.
‘What’s that on his side, Mac?’
‘Och, he’s still some stitches to come out. They need to stay in for a week or so.’
I looked at the dog, said, ‘Poor bastard.’
Mac laid my pint on the bar. Guinness spilled down the glass and onto the cardboard Tennent’s mat. ‘So, Sighthill… how did it go?’
I got started: ‘You know a guy called Sid, friend of Moosey’s?’
‘What’s he look like?’
I gave a brief description.
‘Sounds like Sid the Snake… Sid’s not his real name: he gets called that because he looks like that guy off Little and Large, Syd Little, has the glasses and the lot. Doesn’t like the handle, though, that’s why he’s got the ponytail.’
Fitted perfectly.
‘What’s his story?’
Mac went back to the Guinness, started to fill up the rest of the pint, said, ‘He’s a bookie.’
Hod butted in, tapping a finger on the bar. ‘I know this guy… I met some people at the casino, once or twice they put it my way to take a swatch at some bare-knuckle fights. I went but it wasn’t my scene, too savage. Anyway, you meet people, right, and these people talk… This Sid keeps a book on dog fights. Fucking sure it’s him.’
I was having one of my moments of clarity, said, ‘Moosey’s house was virtually a kennel, there’s dogs fucking running about all over the place. You think Sid and Moosey were running this caper for Rab Hart?’
Mac topped off my pint, handed it over. ‘Well, Sid’s one of Rab’s crew for sure. Has been for years.’
‘Rasher says the crew’s in bad shape since Rab went away, lot of tinpot hard men jostling for prominence… Could he have been caught in the crossfire?’
‘Maybe,’ Mac sneered, ‘maybe you’ll join him if you go there.’
I let that slide. ‘And those wee pricks on the hill, what about them? Think they might be part of the scene, or hangers-on?’
‘The flash, the wheels, the bling, the clobber… It’s as obvious as a donkey’s cock — they’re into the dog fights too.’ Mac’s voice was firm. ‘It’s a big-money racket now.’ He peered down at our own dog in his basket. ‘That’s what they were doing with him too — probably no use to them as a fighter.’
‘So, what, they just tortured him for sport?’ I said.
‘Looks likely.’
