Grimms57

Pizza Face pulls his duffle coat hood down, to show he is serious, even though the rain is coming down horizontal. He does a feint and step-over, is playing at being John Greig, hitting the ball against the washhouse wall, turning with one slick movement of his hips and getting a shot away into the goals, which is a dustbin slightly out of alignment from the others in the uneven cobbled lane and winning the Scottish Cup in the last minute for Rangers against their old rivals, Celtic.

‘Goal!’ He holds his arms aloft and he can hear one-hundred thousand fans in the stadium screaming the Ranger’s captain’s name, ‘Graham-Graham-Graham.’ Some of them jump over the barrier to hug him and do a drunken wee dance, bowing down before him, before getting huckled away by the police.

Out of the corner of his eye he spots Jaz, smoking a fag, leaning again the wall of the close and peering through the rain at him. A red Adidas bag lies at his feet. His older brother flicks his dout away and waves his younger brother beside him.

Pizza Face picks the ball up from an oily puddle, his hands wet and dirty he wipes them on the side of his jacket. Game over. But the buzz is still in his head, the fans have went home happy. Plodding towards the close mouth, even from a few yards away the reek of booze grabs him, but his brother shows no sign of being drunk.

‘I want you to dae me a favour.’ Jaz dips into his denim-jacket pocket, pulls out a twenty packet of Regal, and shells one towards Pizza Face, treating him as an adult and entrusting him with his heavy gold lighter to spark up first.

Pizza Face kicks his ball into the close and steps out of the rain, gets a whiff of petrol but can’t get the flint to work. He looks up at Jaz, expecting him to be cranky and to get a cuff in the ear, but his brother simply lights up for both of them and they stand for a minute smoking in companionable silence.

‘I’ve got a wee job for yeh,’ Jaz says. ‘And you don’t even have to dae much.’

‘Whit is it?’

‘Och, nothing much, I just want you to go in somewhere and have a quick look and come back out and tell me who’s inside.’

‘Where?’ Pizza Face starts coughing. His brother’s ferret eyes are looking at him as if he’s a white rabbit and it’s making him nervous. He nips the fag by rolling the lit end between thumb and index finger and he put the dout in his coat pocket for later.

‘Never you mind that the noo.’ The rounded toe of Jaz’s black leather shoes kick against the zipped holdup. ‘See this bag.

‘Aye,’ Pizza Face looks down at it.

‘This is what I’m gonnae dae.’ Jaz takes a last drag and lets the fag fall and crushes it under his heal. ‘When I come out of this place I’m gonnae hand you this bag. Kid on you don’t know me. It’ll be heavy, but you’ve no’ far to go. And I want you to just walk as normal. Don’t look behind you. And don’t run. Bring it back here and go up the stairs as normal.’ His brother points with his index finger to silvery threads of spider webs, the damp and speckled brown close roof above their heads. ‘Give the bag to my old lady. And whatever you dae, don’t look inside it, or I’ll cut your fuckin’ heid aff.’

Pizza Face look over his shoulder and out into the traffic. ‘Whit if I get caught?’

‘Caught doin’ whit?’ Jaz says. He makes it sound unreasonable.

‘Dunno.’

‘Well, then.’ Jaz holds out a fiver. ‘Money up front. And another fiver when we’re done. Cannae argue with that. That’s mair money than yer da makes in a week.’ He lets it sink in. ‘And all for nothin’.’

Pizza Face takes a step back, turns and looks behind him, out into the rain. ‘I’m no’ sure.’

Jaz picks the bag up. Flings his arm around his brother’s shoulder, pulls him in tight towards him, edging forward and steps out into the back court. ‘Let’s take a wee walk.’

‘Will I need my ba’?’ Pizza Face’s voice is wobbly.

‘Nah, you’ll no’ need it.’

They’re going under the tunnel between tenements and out into the main drag at Dunbarton Road. Jaz takes an inordinate interest in the traffic as it slows and picks up speed, peering at the driver’s as if memorising their faces. A bus passes them and Jaz’s grip loosens as they stand waiting to cross the road.

‘I better take the ba’ back and stick it in the house,’ Pizza Face says. ‘To keep it safe. Somebody could steal it.’

Jaz laughs. ‘Aye, they could.’ He pushes his brother’s shoulder, urging him to cross the road with him as there’s a gap in the traffic. ‘Just bring it wae yeh, it’ll be mair natural that way. But whatever you do, don’t leave it behind.’

‘I wouldnae dae that. It’s a good ba’!’

Jaz hurries him along past the shops and canal stink catches in their throats and then he slows at the tenement block with the rent office on the ground floor. He puts the bag down, lights a fag and pulls his collar up and drags his fingers through his hair, slicking it back from his face. He stands sideways on the pavement and reaches over and pulls Pizza Face’s hood up. ‘Listen, I want you to go in there and tell me who is inside. Here’s whit you dae. You cannae see in because of that big fuckin’ stupid wall, which is great, because it means they cannae see us. I want you to kick your ba’ up and down the strip of pavement inside the wall. Natural like. And just stick your heid inside the door and have a quick look. Then come back here.’ He sniffs. ‘Got it?’

‘Aye, you want me to kick the ball about and have a look inside?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Whit dae I dae next?’

‘You come back here.’   

Pizza Face shrugs. It seems like a bit of a skive to him. ‘Then you give me another fiver?’ He’ll have enough sweets to last him to Christmas, or he might even buy a Raleigh racing bike out of Tausney’s.

The skelp across his cheek stings his nose and he drops the ba’. ‘You didnae need to dae that.’ He crouches down to pick it up and hurries towards the rent office. The metal gate rasps as he pushes it open. The wall is common red brick worn with age but twice his height. He drops the ball to his feet and kicks it to the other end of passage where the door is. A woman with long black hair and a blue jumpsuit doesn’t see him as she intensely studies the latest entry in the folded cardboard and annotated rent book in her hand. He has a quick look in. It’s a big room with wooden benches along the walls like he’d seen in church and a queue at the windows of paying in stations.

He hurries back to tell Jaz what he’s seen.

‘Anything else?’ Jaz asks, picking the bag up, scanning right and left.

Then he remembers. ‘An old woman sitting on one of the benches,’ he says. ‘And a pregnant woman, so fat she looks as if she could drop at any time.’

‘OK,’ Jaz says. ‘You did well.’ But he doesn’t act like it. Grips him by the shoulder and guides him back along towards the housing block. Looks through the gate, unlatches it and puts the bag down. Pushes him the other side of the wall. ‘Wait here,’ he says. ‘And when I come out I’ll hand you the bag. You take it up the road.’ He unzips the Adidas holdall and pulls out two Star pistols, black balaclava and a pair of tights. ‘Fuck this up and I’ll fuck you up.’

Pizza Face nods, his legs shaking. He watches the traffic, expecting to hear sirens and police cars. When he hears a bang, he knows it’s a shot from a gun, followed by two other shots. A few minutes later, but it seems like slow-motion at the La Scala picture hall, Jaz flies out the gate and passes him the bag and keeps running across the road, pulling the balaclava off and slowing down as he hits the other pavement. The walk home becomes a run, even though the bags heavy, because he’s sure somebody will follow him, but nobody does and when he gets to the top landing and chaps the door Karen opens it and Angela is standing at her back in the lobby looking out at him and everything seems to have went back to normal in a different time, a different life.