Wrong 'Em Boyo And Three Other Stories Of Revenge Read online

  WRONG ‘EM, BOYO

  and three other stories of revenge

  by

  Ray Banks

  Published by Blasted Heath, 2012

  Individual stories copyright © 2006-2009, Ray Banks

  Collection copyright © 2012, Ray Banks

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

  Ray Banks has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Blasted Heath

  Formatting by Jason G. Anderson

  Visit Ray Banks at:

  www.blastedheath.com

  Version 2-1-3

  Contents

  Wrong ‘Em, Boyo

  Money Shot

  The Ballad of Davey Robson

  Run, Rabbit, Run

  Dirty Work by Ray Banks

  Also by Ray Banks

  Don’t Miss Out

  Wrong ‘Em, Boyo

  (first published in Dublin Noir, 2006)

  “Welcome to Dublin, sir.”

  “Get tae fuck.”

  It was an hour from Edinburgh to Dublin, all cramped up in the belly of a Ryanair with attendants who didn’t bother to show us the escape doors. One of ‘em had the pure blarney shite running free from his puss. I could tell he was a poof, likes. Graham Norton type, y’ken?

  Then the cunt of a cab driver, same old shite. A leprechaun with fuckin’ eyebrows on his cheeks. He skinned us out of most of my funny money and dropped us off on O’Connell Street. Best Western, The Dublin Royal. I wondered how royal a three-star could be, got my answer when I saw my room: not fuckin’ very. I dumped the Head bag and switched on the telly. Couple of channels, they wasn’t even speaking fuckin’ English. I lit a Bensons and cracked open the bottle of duty free. Jack Daniels. Took a swallie and put the bottle on the bedside cabinet. Looked out of the window, felt sick. Call this culture? Princes Street, that’s culture. This is a motorway with a couple of fuckin’ statues of nobodies.

  This country, man. I’d been here before, but that was thirty years ago. Hiding behind a wall in Belfast, trying not to shite my uniform. I had a gun then, mind. Thanks to yer boy Bin Laden, the best I could manage this time was a Stanley the Big Yin give us when I was sixteen.

  Big Yin. His name was Connolly, like the other Big Yin. And if the comedian had carried on drinking and being funny instead of marrying that blonde piece, he’d have looked like our Big Yin too. Must admit, I fancied a wee shot at her when she was in that leotard in Superman 3, likes, but when I found out she was a head-shrinker, Wee Shug wilted.

  Big Yin was the reason I was here. Him and a mick called Barry Phelan. A bunch of old scores to be settled and me buff apart from the Stanley.

  It didn’t matter. A solid blade was all a Boyo needed.

  ***

  Walking with Big Yin, him finding his feet slow. We was going down the chipper on Broughton Road. He had a winter coat on and his breath came out in short blasts of smoke. Ice on the pavement and I had to guide him over it.

  “You got a name for us, Shuggie?” he said.

  “Aye. Barry Phelan.”

  “Away, I thought he was dried up.”

  “That’s what I heard, Mr Connolly. A man with a gun in his puss doesn’t lie.”

  “Good lad.”

  I got the name from Lee Cafferty, a bristling big-fuck suedehead who’d been the leader of a gang of sawn-offs. This bunch of pricks had turned over a card game behind one of Big Yin’s massage-and-handjob places down London Road. And for a hard cunt, Cafferty was quick to piss his tartan boxers. Mind you, when you thumb back the hammer of a revolver, it’s like St Peter slammed the book shut. Sorry, auld son, Big Cat says y’ain’t coming up.

  “What d’you want done?” I said to Big Yin.

  He coughed, shook his head. After he cleared his throat, he said: “I want the cunt deid is what I want, Shugs. Bastard thinks he can jump the pond and do over one of my places?” Big Yin pulled a face. His cheeks went hollow and in the glow of the streetlamp, I could see right through the skin. “I want his balls. You do that for us, son. You go over there and you bring us back his fuckin’ balls while they’re still bleeding.”

  “Okay.”

  We went into the chipper. Big Yin got a poke of chips drowned in vinegar. About the only thing he could taste. He told the plooky lass behind the counter to keep the change and I escorted him out. The wind coming strong up the hill, I had to hold onto Big Yin’s arm as we went back to his house. He struggled with the chips, dropped a couple. I got him back home, took off his coat and got him settled in his chair.

  “You want a nightcap, Mr Connolly?” I said.

  “I widnae say no, Shugs.”

  Poured him a double-dram of Glenlivet and sat the glass on the table next to him. He turned on the telly and caught the beginning of a Minder repeat. When I left, I could hear him humming the theme tune.

  That night, I sat in the dark because my eyes hurt. I tanned a bottle of brandy, listened to Johnny Cash and held the Stanley Big Yin had given us. I didn’t need light to know what was on there. My finger traced it out: “Shuggie BTTE”

  Boyo To The End.

  Aye, that’d be right. I slipped the Stanley into my pocket, went to pack my bag.

  ***

  “You’re kidding us, you’re fuckin’ kidding us.”

  “Honest, Shuggie. I widnae kid yez around on this, man.”

  “You couldn’t have telt us before I got on the fuckin’ plane? Jesus Christ, man.”

  “I didnae get a chance, Shugs. I only found out this morning. You got a black tie?”

  “Fuck yersel’,” I said and slammed the receiver back on the cradle. Missed, slammed it again. I could still hear Keith whining at the other end. Smacked the phone so hard, the speaker part came off in my hand. Left it at that and saw a young mick punk waiting to use the phone. Said, “Fuck you staring at?”

  “You what?” he said.

  I walked over to him. “How do I get to Mount Jerome?”

  “You get him drunk enough, he’ll do anything.” The punk rolled his shoulders, reckoned hisself a piece of work with the nose ring and that stud in his eyebrow.

  “Fuck’s that, eh? Irish sense of humour?” I grabbed the fucker by the arm, hauled him into the phone box. Pressed him up against the glass. “How’s about a Scottish joke then? This smart cunt’s got no nose. How does he smell?”

  “Wait a second —”

  “He fuckin’ doesn’t.” I pulled the nose ring out, took the nostril with it. He tried to clap his hand over the ragged wound, but I held him fast.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “I’m just kidding around, man.”

  “Stuff it up your craic. Tell us where the fuckin’ cemetery is or I’ll pan yer cunt in.”

  “You get the bus from up the road,” he said. When he talked, he spat.

  “Which one?”

  “Sixteen. Get off at Harold’s Green.”

  I pushed him to the floor of the box. Pulled my hood up and wandered across the road to the bus shelter. Lit a Bensons, watched the white part get spotted with rain. The punk found his feet and took off. Run, Forrest, run.

  Barry Phelan. Some radge bastard had already done the job for me, and His name was God. A stroke knocked Phelan into the Beaumont and a heart attack finished him off in the wee small hours. A shock for all concerned. Mostly me. And if I could take the
Big Cat to task, I fuckin’ would. Just like Him to cheat a trying man, ken what I mean?

  My man Keith was supposed to keep his ear to the ground. He was supposed to tell us where Phelan was when I got here. I’ll sort him out before I go. Useless fucker. Wouldn’t be surprised he got hisself hooked up with the wrong crowd, ken? It was getting that way. People didn’t have respect for tradition no more.

  The Bensons tasted rank. I chucked it into a puddle as I saw the bus coming.

  ***

  What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral?

  One less drunk.

  Aye, I’m a funny cunt. And I needed something to lighten my mood when I got to Mount Jerome. The place was a sea of grey, man. Tombstones, creepy bastard crypts and whassit… mausoleums, eh? An Irish funeral in the middle of a cloudburst. Talk about fuckin’ maudlin. I walked through the stones, making sure I trod on as many of they dead cunts’ heads as I could, sidled up against a tomb and watched all they bastards in their drookit Sunday best watching God’s lad go through the motions.

  Ashes to ashes. Funk to funky.

  The mourners, they was mostly family. I could tell because they was ugly bastards. Skinny, suits hanging off them like they was three sizes too big. The women, small and stodgy, hidden away behind tatty black veils. Professional fuckin’ widows, ken? And it pished down throughout. I spat at the ground, put my hand in my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the Stanley.

  Barry Phelan’s balls, they was under that screwed-down lid. Unless I shot over there, jumped on the coffin and prised it open with my bare hands, Phelan’s balls were going to be worm food along with the rest of him. That wasn’t any big deal. Bollocks was bollocks. There was bound to be another lad round here who I could pass off as the real deal. And I saw him as soon as the coffin went under.

  He came to me, hand outstretched. A tall lad with a gut and white hair. “Tommy Phelan.”

  I shook. His hand like a wet fish supper in my grip. I read somewhere that a man’s scrotum and nose kept growing as he got older. If that was the case, then this Tommy Phelan must’ve had knackers the size of watermelons, I’m telling you, because that nose made him look part toucan. “Hugh Sutton,” I said. “Mates call us Shug.”

  “You’re Scottish,” he said.

  And you’re a fuckin’ genius. “Aye, fae Edinburgh, likes,” I said, getting coarse with the cunt. He wanted Scottish, he’d get Scottish. “I heard Barry kicked it, likes, so I thought I’d mosey over and check it out.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I ken Lee Cafferty.”

  “Lee’s a good man.”

  Lee’s a dead man. I shot him in the crown, left him sticking to the lino like a fly in shite. “He certainly is.”

  “You’ll be coming to the wake,” said Tommy. A statement.

  “No can do. Got to be back in Edinburgh.”

  “Sure, you can stay for a wee while. I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

  “Ach, if you put it like that,” I said. “I’d be glad to.”

  ***

  An Irish wake, like a Scottish wedding, Hogmanay and Burns Night all rolled into one. A cold spread on a long table up against one wall that’d hardly been touched. Empty bottles that had. We was upstairs in this place called The Lantern. Phelan sitting across from us, a half-tanned bottle of Bushmills and a pint of Guinness next to it. Talk about fuckin’ stereotypes, man, the auld lad was half in his cups and two sheets to the wind about an hour after we got there. He had a Players between his fingers. I didn’t ken they still made ‘em.

  “What do you think of Dublin?” he asked me. But like most soused micks, he didn’t wait for an answer. His face screwed up and he leaned forward, rattling the table. The black stuff didn’t move. “It’s not Ireland,” he said. “It’s England’s version of Ireland. You know you can’t smoke in pubs over here now? Legislated. We’re losing our culture bit by bit.”

  “Aye.” Thinking, smoking’s part of your culture, pal?

  “Sure, you know all about that, don’t you? I been to Edinburgh, I seen what they did to that place. Shops on Princes Street all full of See-You-Jimmy wigs, am I right? Fuckin’ English screwing you out of your heritage. Tourist tat. Am I right?”

  “Aye, you’re right.”

  “Dublin’s the same. Temple Bar, I was down there the other week, it’s full of coffee shops. Theme pubs. Fuckin’ yanks coming over here claiming they have ancestors from the fuckin’ bogs. You know what I say? I say feisigh do thoin fein, that’s what I say.”

  “Gesundheit,” I said.

  A young lad came over to the table. He was stringy, had a mean look about him. He put a bottle of clear liquid on the table and Phelan’s eyes lit up like a cheap fruit machine. “Now that’s more like it. You’ll join me, so.”

  “I’m alright, Mr Phelan.”

  “My brother died, the name’s Tommy, and you’ll join me. Won’t he, Barry?”

  “Course he will,” said the stringy lad. He took a seat. I knew he was a wanker, because he turned the chair and straddled it.

  “My nephew’s just come back from your neck of the woods,” said Tommy. He poured three deep shots from the bottle. “Barry, this is Shug. He’s an Edinburgh lad.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said. But his eyes said different. His index finger ran down the side of the shot glass. Brown flecks under the nail. “It’s done, Tommy.”

  “There’s a good lad. You take care of it yourself?”

  Barry looked across at me, like he was trying to work out if it was safe. Then: “The auld bastard was dead when I got there.” He cracked a grin like a graveyard. “Fucker was sitting in front of the telly, Tommy. Sitting in his own shite.”

  I smiled. My mouth was open. Some fuck had put vinegar on the roof and it hurt to breathe. I reached for the shot glass. “What’s this, vodka?”

  Tommy’s face flickered. “Poitín, Shuggie. Sláinte.”

  “Sláinte,” said Barry.

  “Whatever,” I said and necked it. It burned my throat. That, or something else.

  ***

  A rat always knows when he’s in with weasels. That’s the way the song goes.

  I drank with them, tried to hold it down. Kept wanting to twitch right out of there. Barry didn’t drink so much, and neither did I, but Tommy got wasted. His eyes glazed over, his chin got loose. It looked like he was melting. “Your da would be proud of you, Barry-son. He’d be proud.”

  “I know, Uncle Tommy.”

  Barry Phelan, son of Barry Phelan. They fuckin’ Irish, they keep it simple, eh? They have to, the amount they pour down their necks. I got a measure of Barry right away. This cunt clocked on who I was, likes. That’s why he told me what happened to Big Yin. Laughing at me. It tore at my gut, made me want to chew his fuckin’ nose off.

  Shug Sutton. The last of the Boyos. The rest all up and fucked off with other firms. Shuggie stayed put. More fool me, eh?

  I waited until Barry got to his feet and announced that he had to take a pish. Waited another three seconds and did the same thing. Tommy out of it. I walked into the toilets and Barry had his back to me, pishing in one of the cubicles. Too insecure to use the urinal, hung like a fuckin’ hamster, eh?

  “I don’t hear pissing, Shugs,” said Barry, shaking his wee man. Took more than three shakes, the wanker. “Which means you’re thinking about doing something rash, am I right?”

  I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t find the breath.

  Barry turned in the cubicle. He smiled. His bottom set of teeth was all skew-whiff, likes. “Yer man’s dead, Shugs. He was dead before I got there. So you go back out there and you raise a glass to the new crew, alright? Because you don’t, I’ll have the whole family rip you a new arse to match yer fuckin’ face.”

  I thought about that for about five seconds. And the cunt Phelan made to push past us. I stood still.

  “You fuckin’ simple, Shugs? It’s over, pal,” he said.

  Right enough. It
was over.

  I clamped a hand over his mouth, grabbed his balls with the other and pushed him back into his fuckin’ cubicle. His breath was hot on my palm. I cracked his skull against the wall until he went limp. Lost myself for a second, then came back with blood on my hands and saltwater hanging from my mouth. My lungs hurt. I couldn’t breathe proper.

  Slapped the lock across the cubicle door and let Barry’s head drop against the toilet bowl. Fumbled for my Stanley and pulled the cunt’s drawers down. Wiped my nose with the back of my hand and sniffed hard, slumped down onto the floor with him. Got to work. Had to keep wiping my face because I couldn’t see through the water.

  Outside I heard people singing country songs. Cunts didn’t cry at the funeral, but stick on Patsy Cline and they greeted like bairns.

  “Crazy”. Of all the fuckin’ things to hear.

  I leant back against the toilet, mopped my face with my sleeve. The cunt had bled all over the shop, the tiles sticky. And there was me, sitting right in the middle of it, man. Britches all fuckin’ bloody an’ that, my shirt a mess. It stank of Barry’s last pish and blood and shite. I let my head fall back and I stared at the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, red dots in front of my eyes.

  Barry Phelan didn’t kill Big Yin; God did. And it didn’t matter which Barry Phelan did the London Road blag, didn’t matter that Big Yin wouldn’t give a fuck if I had the cunt’s balls or not.

  I promised him, ken? You can’t go back on a promise to a dying man. Especially when you was all the poor bastard had.

  And aye, there was no way I was getting out of here alive. If I’d had that gun I put Lee to the lino with, I’d have had a fighting chance. But right then, my arse wet through with Barry Phelan’s blood, I didn’t have the strength in me to do fuck all but sit there and listen to Patsy fuckin’ Cline and Tammy fuckin’ Wynette, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  Took they cunts an hour to realise Barry was a no-show. Took another fifteen or so to check the bogs. And daft fuckin’ micks, took them a bucketload of mouth and one hard kick to bust down the door.