THE BIG BLIND

by Ray Banks

RAY BANKS has been a double-glazing salesman, croupier, student and varying degrees of disgruntled office monkey. All of which, mixed with a heady cocktail of booze and hatred, brought The Big Blind to the page. He is also the creator of Manchester PI Callum Innes, who has appeared in Handheld Crime, Hardluck Stories, Plots With Guns and Thrilling Detective. At the moment, Ray is wrestling with the first Innes book, Dead Man's Hand and eagerly awaiting publication of The Big Blind by PointBlank Press this autumn. And sometimes, just sometimes, he's been known to write third-person past tense.
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Go tell that long-tongued liar
Go tell that midnight rider
Tell the gambler, the rambler, the backbiter
Tell ’em God Almighty gonna cut ’em down

Traditional Gospel

 

ONE

Dump the job, dump the Beale, get the girl and live happily ever after.

It could work.

It will work.

I’m thinking I’ve got it sussed. Right up until I jolt.

All I see is this quick shadow in the headlights. A blur. A loud thud against the front of the car.

Then I’m stamping on the brakes and wrestling with the wheel. I don’t know what the fuck just hit me or I just hit and I’m skidding across the road. It’s wet and I’m getting that sinking feeling that turns into a sickening stab to the guts.

Christ.

This is it. This is the end.

This is what you think about when you’re about to die.

All you see is the world spinning around. Your brain’s numb. You feel like you can see when you can’t. Just this flashing light in front of you. It moves to one side. But you can’t feel your body moving. All you can do is stare straight ahead as your heart jumps into your throat.

No eye-opening last revelations.

No snapshots of life flashing before my eyes, thank fuck.

I mean, thank God.

Devout, that’s me.

Seconds are hours stretched into black and white.

And then it all stops.

For a moment, I’m so jarred, I think I’ve carked it.

That’s until I feel the horrible cramp in my fists. They’ve been clenched around the steering wheel so tight the blood has drained from them. I snap open my hands and try to stare at them. The jolt has played pinball with my eyes. I get my vision back after a few seconds. I’m wheezing from the bruises the seatbelt made to my chest.

I try to count dolphins but give it up. My mind isn’t working properly just yet, and I’m in no state to root around for Doctor Jamella’s relaxation tapes.

So I take deep breaths, try to work out what just happened. I’m still on the road, but the car’s skewed slightly. A black form glistens in the headlights, off to one side.

I hit something. Something hit me, hit the car. Something darted out in front of me. I collided, the car collided, with something, someone.

Oh fuck, I hope it’s not a someone. I don’t think I could handle a someone.

It was small, whatever it was. It couldn’t have been a person; I would have seen the face.

Not an adult, anyway.

I choke a little.

No way. Not happening. A kid? Out here in the middle of a street in the middle of the night in the rain and just running out in front of cars because he’s got nothing better to do?

Not possible.

But I’ve got to check.

Trying to stop the shakes, I slip off the seatbelt and open my door slowly. Rain hits my leg as I try to find my footing.

Nope, I can’t do it. I should just keep driving, forget about it. This sort of stuff blows over. All the time. Especially round here. It’s not important. It doesn’t affect anyone. It shouldn’t affect me.

I’m still thinking this as I get out of the car. I start blaming the rain. Fucking up my vision, the sound of it making me drowsy.

Elvis Costello’s still singing at the top of his voice.

Yeah, the sound of rain made me drowsy. It was the rain.

No, it was the booze.

Oh yeah, the booze. I’m over the limit, probably way over the limit. Drunk-driving and now a hit-and-run, except I’m not running. Not yet, anyway. I’m thinking about it. I’m also thinking about how fucking stupid it is to get out of the car when there could be anyone walking down this street and seeing me and noting my registration number and waiting and hiding and seeing me drive off and then running to the nearest phone box and telling the police the whole sordid little story.

Shut up, Alan. Give your head a fucking shake.

So I feel the headlights on the backs of my legs, see my shadow fall in front of me. The rain’s still coming down, and the damp patches on my jacket are now soaked through.

It’s not a kid.

If it is, it’s some freak kid. Some feral child.

As I get closer, I can see that it’s a big black dog.

I get a horrible flash to The Commercial pooch, the one that just kept staring at me. I’m picturing Beale chatting away to the barmaid about the dog, asking where it was. They let it out for a frolic; sad to keep it cooped up in a smelly old bar.

And there’s me crouched over it.

No, it’s not the same dog. This one has longer hair, matted by the rain and something else that I’m assuming is blood. I don’t want to get too close to it. I’m not sure if it’s dead or just stunned. The last thing I want is it to rear up and go for me.

I keep my distance, wonder what to do.

Behind me, Costello sings "Green Shirt".

I can’t leave it here, not in the middle of the road. And I’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else to put it. I have a look around the street.

Nope, nowhere.

Shit.

I close my eyes and reach forward, give the dog a prod. I’m ready to dart back if that fucking thing so much as flinches.

Nothing. It’s dead. As I pull my hand back, I notice the tips of my fingers are dark with blood. I suddenly don’t want the mess anywhere near me and wipe my fingers on the ground, scraping the skin.

This is just plain bad.

I stand up, look around again. The entire place is deserted. I’m the only man on the face of the earth.

Okay, I have to do something with this dog. The only thing I can think of is to put it in the boot, deal with it later when my head’s a little straighter. I’m in shock, I’m drunk and I’m shaking like a shitting cat and this is the wrong time and wrong state to make decisions, but I’m making them.

I’m taking charge of my life, and it starts with this dog.

My stomach voices its disapproval.

I slide my hands under the dog until I can feel the crook of my elbows against its body and lift with my legs, not with my back. I’m getting this dead, wet stink in my nostrils and I can hardly breathe as I carry the dog back to the car.

The mutt slips from my grip as I reach inside and pop the boot open, but I grab it under the front legs before it hits the ground.

Once I’m round the back of the car, I just drop the dog in and slam the boot shut.

There’s a crunch and the lid springs back open.

I don’t want to look, just feel my way along the lip and push one of the dog’s legs back in, slam the fucking thing closed.

The Costello CD finishes.

And I put my dirty hands against the boot, stare over the roof at the road, bathed in light, and breathe out long and hard.

This is what taking stock of your life gets you.

 

TWO

I was drinking with Beale. That’s what got me here. I was sodden by the time I left. He tried to get me to have another pint, but I couldn’t even think about it. Because another means another and that means yet another, chased with something amber. And when that point comes, that point where I could leave with a buzz, I won’t. I’ll keep going, because balls to it, I deserve another drink. Before I know it, I’ll be arseholed. Then I won’t be able to find my fucking car, let alone drive it.

After I left, I looked at Beale in the frosted glass window of The Commercial. He didn’t have a life outside of me and work. Even his silhouette looked lonely.

He hasn’t told me much about Violet or his daughter, whose name I can’t remember. She keeps on changing it, anyway, according to Beale. Violet’s a really strange piece of work. For a start, she spent fourteen years with Beale before she kicked him into touch.

I don’t mean that in a bad way.

Well, yes, I do.

Beale’s a man that most people have trouble spending an hour with, me included. This is why I drink so much.

They’re divorced now, Les and Vi. He never talks about it. I know how handy he can get when his buttons are pushed. I know the way he starts going barmy if left to his own devices.

All that stuff about the Chinese following him. Pure fucking paranoia.

The trouble is, I can’t be bothered with him much. He’s pushing my patience. If I manage to get back with Lucy, if I manage to make things right, I might have to forget about Beale.

I’ve thought about it a lot.

We pick and choose. Whatever we do, we’re blameless.

 

****

 

I’m calmer by the time I get to Salford.

Now my problem is disposal. The area’s in a state of arrested development, which means there are a load of half demolished buildings dotting the landscape. Trouble is they’re mostly either boarded up or surrounded by a ten-foot wire fence. I get to wondering what the fuck people are going to steal from a pile of rubble, but then they’d steal the steam off your piss round these parts. So I end up sitting in my car, staring at wasteland through wire mesh. The windscreen wipers are going ten-to-the-dozen and I can’t work out what to do. The dog can’t stay in the boot. But I can’t get in anywhere, and I’m not strong enough to toss the mutt over the fence. Check my watch. My idea of having an early night has crashed and burned.

My mobile starts bleating at me. I think about switching it off until I get this dog situation sorted, but it’s Lucy.

"You left a message," she says.

"I just wanted to make sure we were alright."

"Why wouldn’t we be alright, Alan?"

I start to say something, but she keeps right on talking.

"I mean, you leave me at three in the morning for some business you won’t tell me about and you’re gone all night. You come back and you’re fucked and stink like Maurice’s room and pass out. And there’s me with an early lecture and I thought we could spend some time together and you’re flaked and you just grunt at me when I try to wake you up. So my tutor bollocks me for missing the lecture today and it’s all your fault. So why wouldn’t we be alright?"

I don’t answer. I take a deep breath and hope she accepts it.

"Don’t just sigh at me, Alan," she says.

"I’m sorry?" I say.

"That a question?"

"It’s a statement. Look, it’s been a bit of a rough night, Lucy. I had an accident."

"Accident?" she says, a hint of worry in her voice.

"Yeah. Listen, can I come over?" What the fuck am I thinking? "I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but I could do with the company."

Silence as she thinks about it.

A bit too much silence.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"I’m fine," I say. "Just a bit shaken up."

More silence.

"I haven’t forgiven you," she says.

Which means she has, but she’ll be pouty for a while.

"I know," I say. "And I am sorry."

"Okay," she says. "Come over."

And we’re back in business. I smile, tell her I’ll be there in about an hour. Should take me less than that to dump this dog, but I want to leave myself a little leeway. I don’t need to show up on her doorstep with a dead dog in the back of my car.

It’s hardly a bunch of flowers.

I hang up and try to get my mind back on the job in hand.

I start the engine, let the wipers speed up a little as the rain comes down. No point sitting around.

I’ve got another idea.

 

****

 

One of these days, Manchester is going to be flooded off the face of the planet, and all that’ll be left are the grey tower blocks. Maybe tonight if this rain keeps up. It’s relentless, coming down in sheets, lashing against the Rover as I look for a suitably dark, quiet spot along the canal.

I have to look hard, but I find one. Just off a row of terraced houses there’s a short slope to the water. Once they get this place cleaned up, they’ll knock down the houses and put up flats with "canal side views".

I pull up as close as I can. Peering through the gloom, I can just about make out the water. This is so far down the canal, it’s thick with dead foliage and used condoms, cigarette packets and pages ripped from discarded porn mags. I pop the boot and sit with it open for a while, hoping that the rain stops. I’ve been drenched enough tonight and I’m starting to stink worse than that dog. Cold sweat crusted in the small of my back, blood, dog hair and damp.

I suppose it’ll help my case with Lucy, looking so bedraggled, but I really liked this suit and I wish I’d brought a coat.

A sudden wind-whipped lash of rain cuts across the windscreen and I wake up. My stomach twitches and I remember what I was doing. I better sort this out before the boot floods.

The weather’s a shotgun blast to the face. I squint against it, got that ice-cream headache again and I have to grope my way along the side of the car because I can’t see. The tips of my fingers are frozen and wet as I get to the boot and duck my head under. I put up with the smell and take a little rest from the rain.

This is going to be tricky. A slippery path leads down to the canal. I reckon I’m just going to dump the dog in the bushes and get out of here.

That’s the plan, anyway.

This dog’s a fucking sponge, I swear to God. Either I’m a lot weaker than I was half an hour ago, or Fido here has soaked up enough water to keep an African village going for a month. I end up buckling at the knees as I pull him out, getting myself dirtier in the process.

I don’t feel him slipping out of my hands until I’m thrown off-balance trying to catch the bastard and end up with one knee in a puddle. My head drops, rain running down the back of my neck; I must look like I’m about to propose to this dead, hairy, stinking thing.

"Fuck it," I say. "Fuck. It."

Fuck it.

I get up off my knee, which is now a large dark soaking blotch, and I grind my teeth and try not to shout.

All this. All this fucking . . . .

My stomach starts its gnawing.

Just . . . .

Dolphins don’t work.

The tide is turning, about to crash on the rocks.

The dog looks up at me with glassy eyes.

I lose it, flapping about in the rain and kicking the hell out of the dog. I don’t deserve this. I don’t fucking deserve all this fucking bad luck and this fucking stupid fucking life.

I almost drop to my arse a couple of times, my heart jumping every time I slip, until I get control of myself and lean against my knees to catch my breath. I’m rasping a little, my lungs ragged and itchy. I cough out a huge lump of phlegm and watch it fly into a puddle.

I need a drink.

I leave the dog, slump behind the wheel of the Rover, and slam the door as the engine kicks in.

 

****

 

Luckily for me, Lucy has a half-full bottle of Jack she hasn’t finished. When I get to her place, she just stands in the doorway and stares at me.

"What?" I say.

"What the hell happened to you?" she says.

"I told you, I had an accident. Can I come in now?"

"Yeah, sure, sorry," she says, and I squelch inside. It’s then that she fusses over me, takes off my sopping jacket, throws it into the living room and leads me upstairs to the bedroom and the booze.

"So what happened again?" she asks when I’m a bit drier and a bit warmer on the inside.

I look at my muddy knee. That stain’s never going to shift. I might as well have dumped the suit when I dumped the dog.

"Alan?"

I snap awake again. "Oh," I say. "I hit a dog."

"With what?" she asks.

I look at her; she can be so lovably dense at times.

"With the car," I say. "The thing came darting out in front of me. I didn’t have time to swerve."

Lucy’s brow crinkles. She takes a drink. "You killed it?"

"It wasn’t premeditated," I say. "It wasn’t a random hobby-kill, either. You should see what the bugger did to the front of my car."

"Yeah, but you killed it."

I turn around on the bed, my arse still damp, and give her a good, hard look. "I didn’t mean to. I didn’t set out to find a dog and kill it. It wasn’t my fault."

"Were you drinking?"

"No," I lie. "Look, it was a black dog, it was raining, it came running out in front of me, I tried to swerve, but I hit it and unfortunately I killed it, okay?"

Jesus, how many more times do I have to tell her?

"Okay," she says. She sips her Jack, looks at the floor.

"I’m sorry, Luce. There was nothing I could do."

"It’s okay."

We sit in silence. She stares at the duvet. Finally, she says, "What did you do with the body?"

The body. Christ.

"I disposed of it," I say.

"How?"

"I just . . . . Is this necessary, Luce?"

"I’d like to know."

"I didn’t spend all night looking for its owner, if that’s what you mean."

"Then what did you do?"

I look into my drink, but the answer isn’t floating there like I wish it was. How to put this. "I dumped it by the canal," I say.

She nods, as if she knew all along.

"What’s the matter?"

She shakes her head.

"Tell me."

"I . . . ." And more silence. "It’s a little cold, isn’t it Alan?"

"What else was I going to do?"

"But you looked for a place to dump it . . . ."

"It wasn’t like that, Lucy."

"Then what was it like?"

"Maybe I better go."

But I stay where I am. We both drink.

"It’s okay," she says quietly. "You want to stay here tonight?"

"I don’t know. Do you want me to?"

She sighs. She has a tired look about her. I dread to think what I must look like.

"I don’t know," she says.

"Do we have to decide now?"

"No, suppose not."

And just like that, she starts crying and before I know it, tears are streaming down her face and her cheeks have gone red and I feel like the biggest shitheel in the history of the world. She starts shuddering so hard I think she’s going to spill her drink. I take her glass from her, set it on the bedside table and put my arms around her.

"What’s the matter?" I say.

She shakes her head. I have to hug her tighter to stop her heaving so much. I’m really not good at all this emotion. If Beale’s not set to detonate, he’s growling or moaning. I mean, that’s emotion I can handle. It’s real but it’s not. Most of Beale’s a bluff. All the huffing and puffing he does is just that – hot air. With everyone else, it’s different masks, the kind people put on when there’s a stranger in their house – they’re happily married, they’re always this tidy, this hospitable, this cheery, this honest-to-goodness nice. Or it’s salesmen with the fronts they put up. Nobody’s hit the skids, had a bad run, the volume is always going to improve, the next one’s the pitch from heaven, you just wait.

But this, I don’t know how to deal with. I keep hugging her as she shakes noiselessly in my arms, and I wonder what the correct response is.

I’ve never had to deal with this before. My parents were pretty cool individuals, even through the divorce. They never did all this, didn’t fight, didn’t hurt each other. I didn’t think I was in the middle of anything drastic. They pretty much ignored me anyway.

But I don’t want to talk about that. Fuck it, a person isn’t their childhood. A person is now, a person is here.

And this person is having to deal with a crying young woman. A crying girl.

I try to remember what to do. I rub her back gently as she sniffs against my shirt. I even think about saying, "There, there", but bite my tongue.

Finally, she comes up for air and rubs at her eyes. "Sorry," she says.

Time of the month, I think. "It’s okay," I say.

"I don’t know what happened, sorry."

"It’s okay," I say again, quieter this time. Hopefully, it sounds more sympathetic. But the more I think about it, the more I look at her red, streaked face, I don’t know.

Suddenly my mind isn’t where I want it to be.

Lucy leans forward and kisses me. My stomach jumps and lands on something sharp and I kiss back, tight-lipped.

"What’s the matter?" she says.

"Nothing," I say, leaning towards her again.

But I know it’s all Beale’s fault. Everything is Beale’s fault. Right from the moment he kicked off at The Palace.

Copyright© 2004 Ray Banks

***

The Big Blind will be published by PointBlank Press in the autumn.