Two Faced. Garry Bushell
forcefully spelled out to him followed by a simple proposition: name the toerag who had hoisted their razor blades or be seriously hurt. Ronnie knew only too well that if he had stuck Riordan’s name up he would have had a worse fucking hiding for being a no-good grass. So he kept shtum and took a beating that left him with six broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a broken leg with a matching ankle that had swollen up to the size of half a cricket ball. When Nicky Nelson had finished with him, his brothers David and Georgie put Ron in a minicab and had him dropped off at the casualty department of Greenwich & District Hospital, which was considerate of them. He never declared who had lifted the parcel, but the lorry-load was handed back to its wrongful owners and all parties respected Ronnie for taking it like a man. On balance, he felt good about the deal. Until he heard a few months later that the Nelsons had known who the tea leaf was before they even arrived at Valley Metals, and that Mickey Riordan’s body had washed up on the Kent coast down by Whitstable a fortnight after Ronnie had been admitted to hospital.
September 5, 1986. Harry was sitting by Ronnie’s hospital bedside eating his grapes. Clavin seemed to have aged ten years. He looked weary. His face seemed heavier. Saggy.
Harry tried asking what had occurred in Islington, but Ronnie just grunted, ‘You don’t fuck with Buck,’ and changed the subject. Ronnie was plastered up but in good spirits. ‘This ain’t a bad old place,’ he observed as a redheaded nurse leaned across him to straighten his pillow.
Harry took in her full figure, slim waiste and long legs. Her heavy breasts pressed against the constraints of her uniform. ‘Will he live, nurse?’ he asked.
‘I think rigor mortis is setting in,’ moaned Ronnie.
‘Any chance of a blanket bath?’ Harry went on. ‘Not for him, for me. I’m free any time you get off work.’
‘Now you stop that, it’s so … Seventies,’ the nurse snapped in a County Antrim accent. But Harry noticed she was blushing.
‘Only pulling your leg,’ he said. ‘Bernadette, was it?’
‘No it was not, nor was it Colleen. I’m a Lucy but I’m only telling you that to stop you working through the whole book of Christian names for Ulster women.’
‘No surrender, would that be?’
‘You’d better believe it.’ She walked off to the next bed, but threw Harry a sly glance, which he caught. He smiled back and made her blush again.
When the nurse was out of sight, Harry grabbed hold of Ronnie’s medical notes and made a great show of studying them, shaking his head and tutting.
‘What do they say?’
‘Put it this way, mate, I wouldn’t bother buying any Christmas presents.’
‘Spanner.’
‘No, seriously, you’re going to be fine but if they leave you to go the distance there might be complications with the baby.’
‘Better put us down for a Caesarian then.’
‘What’s the score with Potman and Noodles, Ron?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘It ain’t everyone who wanders round packing a .45, even in South London.’
‘Funny enough I thought they’d be here by now. I got a message they was coming up today. Here, do you think I could light up in here?’
‘Better not, mate.’
Ronnie belched and nodded.
‘They’re in the scrap, obviously, but they’re proper ’eavy. They’ve got a yard over West with a car shredder that could turn a Sherman tank into a pile of iron filings in five minutes flat. Just the place to lose a body, know what I mean? If you’re in the hurting game and you’ve got a stiff to get shot of, you just call up the Potman and say the magic words “Pizza to go” and that’s it as good as done. Goodnight, Vienna.’
‘How much?’
‘Couldn’t tell ya.’
Harry stroked his chin.
‘Brings new meaning to “pizza toppings”, don’t it?’
‘Yeah. Ha, ha. You wicked bastard.’
‘And then you’re proper garlic bread …’
‘Here, speak of the devil …’
Heavy footsteps made Harry turn. It was Potman, with the smaller Noodles, a sourpuss in army surplus, in tow.
‘Well you’re still alive, then,’ the big Angel observed after hands had been shaken and hellos exchanged.
‘Barely, son, barely.’
‘Nice hospital,’ said the frowning Noodles.
‘Well, on the surface,’ Ronnie moaned. ‘But they keep running out of bog paper. When it happened the other day I used the khazi on the floor below, but it got a bit silly with me on sticks, so I calls over this staff nurse – a right sour-faced old trout – and I says, “’Scuse me, love, there ain’t been no toilet paper in the bog since Tuesday.” She looks down her nose at me and says, “Haven’t you got a tongue in your head?” “Yes,” I says. “But I ain’t got a neck like a giraffe.”’
Potman roared. ‘You must be feeling better, son,’ he said.
‘It’s the people here that cheer me up,’ Ronnie replied. ‘See that fat gut-bucket over there, with a neck like a packet of hot-dog sausages?’ He indicated a thirty-stone man in his fifties. ‘Bottomless Pete we call him, ’cos he never stops eating. Well, yesterday he comes over and tells me he thinks he’s got hand grenades.’
‘Eh?’ said Harry.
‘AIDS, boy, do keep up.’
‘I thought that made you lose weight,’ smirked Potman. ‘He’s fatter than I am.’
‘Maybe he ain’t had it long,’ said Harry. ‘Is he a mate of yours, Ron?’
‘Is he fuck, miserable bleeder. He used to do a bit of business in the yard. Don’t let him see us looking over at him and laughing or all hell will go off. He ain’t the sort of bloke you can have a laugh with. He thinks badinage is an Elastoplast, know what I mean?’
Ronnie shook his head. ‘I’ll never forget, one time he was bending me ear about how he needed to sort himself out a social life, so I put him on to this fella who gets him into a social club down in Dartford near where he lives. Anyway, they have this weekend away at some holiday camp up at Camber Sands or somewhere, you know, a comedy weekend for husbands and wives, no kids. But Bottomless leaves his missus at home and afterward he’s telling me how he’s having a pint at the bar on his Jack ’cos no fucker is talking to him and as he’s gone for a Jimmy the comedian on stage starts coating him off, does a load of fat jokes at his expense, y’know? “Keep clear of the beach, mate, or Greenpeace will cordon you off. Look at the size of him, he’s so fat he bumps into people when he’s sitting down. When he goes to a restaurant he doesn’t get a menu, he gets an estimate.” All the old fanny. So Bottomless stops in his tracks, looks at the comedian and says, “You taking the piss out of me?” and the comedian comes back with, “Fuck me, well spotted. When your IQ hits fifty make sure you sell.” The audience is in stitches, so the comic keeps going. “Only joking, mate,” he says. “I know you’ve got an open mind – I can feel the draft from here.” The audience is creasing up. Well, Bottomless walks up on stage, picks the fella up over his head, walks over to a window and hurls him out. I asked him if it was open and he said, “Does it matter, Ron?” He kills me! So then he’s gone for his slash and when he gets back all the camp security boys are there, with a deputation from the committee. Long and short of it, they tell him he’s got to go home. They follow him to his chalet, he gets packed and they point him out of the gates towards the nearest railway station. And here’s