Lonie67

Davy Brown was a hard man to find. Lonie had been up and down to his house a couple of times and he wasn’t in. He phoned him at work, in the middle of the night and they arranged to meet at The Boundary bar in Duke Street the following day.

Lonie squelched through the puddles as he walked from his house in Partick. It took him about forty-five minutes, and the unhurried rhythm of putting one foot in front of another, opened up a space in his head and let him think. He would be there to meet him just after opening time, about elevenish. It was neutral territory for both of them. Not that Lonie felt that he’d anything to fear. It was just a feeling. A difficult thing to pin down, or to put into words.

A man wearing a blue and white tammy was casually leaning against the lamppost, outside The Boundary, looking up and down the street as if waiting for a lift. He eyed Lonie as he approached and quickly looked away, flicking his dout into the oncoming traffic.

The pub was shaped from the outside like a cut-through hexagonal, on the corner of Duke Street, with shuttered in windows at shoulder height, beneath tenement housing. There were two entrances, a way in and a way out. Lonie, as a non-local, just wanted to make sure he didn’t come out with his feet dragging on the scuffed and shiny linoleum and his clothes stinking of fag smoke and stale booze. Davie was sitting on the cushioned seats at a table near the saloon door, with his back against the wall, his shoulders swivelling to meet his gaze and his head sitting tucked into his shirt and grey pullover like a pigeons. He’d a pint of Pale Ale in front of him and his hand came half up in greeting and fell away into a cheesy grin.

‘Whit you wantin’?’ Lonie pointed at the pint on the table and grinned back.

The barman was a middle-aged stocky fellow, who looked like an ex-footballer, with his hair still in training and working on a sweep over.

Lonie pushed a pint towards Davie across the table and sat across from him in one of the rows of wooden chairs that followed the cushioned seats and tables around the walls. Other tables and chairs further along were filled by older gentlemen, dotted here and there like domino markings, a solitary pint with a mouthful of ale taken out of it, sitting in front of them, and fag smoke drifting up to the ceiling. Beyond them were four or five guys in denim, pints of lager stacked on their table, gesticulating and swearing at each other and already half pissed. Davy and Lonie went through the usual small talk about what had been happening at the paper and laughed, touching glasses, at the silliness of their working life. They were four or five pints into the day before they could really talk.

‘You better watch yourself.’ Davy warned. ‘I hear some heavy guys are out looking for you.’

‘If there’s no’ somebody lookin’ for you,’ joked Lonie, ‘ you’re no’ doin’ your job right.’

‘But this is different.’ Davy took a gulp of his pint. His neck and shoulders pinched together as he angled his head sideways towards him. ‘The fatman seems to think you’ve been goin’ off the rails a bit.’ He laughed, a hollow sound, which he quickly covered by slugging back another drink out of his pint.

‘How does the fatman know about me and whit Ah’ve been doin’?’ Lonie’s eyes narrowed through the fag smoke and his voice blended in with the other hoarse voices.

Davy shrugged. ‘Ah’m just saying.’ He finished his pint and went up to the bar to get his round in.

Lonie was drinking whisky with his beer now, but the glow through his body couldn’t drown out the feeling that something was wrong. ‘Look, Ah don’t know how to put this.’ He leaned across, ‘but when Ah talked to some of my contacts, some of the mothers’ and fathers’ of those wee boys that were killed, some of them mentioned that the fatman had another reporter workin’ with ‘im.’

‘That’s a lie. Nobody ever saw me with the fatman.’ Davy’s chin dropped and his mouth hung open as he realized what he’d said. Lonie was fishing. He’d shown Lonie how to bait the hooks when he’d first started in the newspaper game. ‘I mean I never worked with the fatman.’ His eyes shifted towards the door nearest him, but that would have meant passing Lonie. And Davy never liked trouble or fuss.

Lonie’s nostrils flared. He flung back his half, but didn’t say anything for about thirty seconds. ‘Whit does he know?’

‘Nothin’.’ Davy slumped in his seat as if all the air had been let out of his body.

‘Whit does he know?’ growled Lonie.

‘Everythin’.’ Davy shook his head from side to side. His hand shook as he reached for his pint and his teeth chittered, making a clicking noise, like knitting needles, against the glass, beer spilled down his long chin, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

The wooden chair scraped back as Lonie got up. He nodded at the barman to bring him from the end of the room near the other door, where he liked to position himself, watching the fruit machine. Lonie shouted out his round. ‘Whyte and Mackay. Two doubles.’ The glasses clinked together as he brought them back to the table. ‘Here.’ He handed one to Davy and still standing at the table flung his back in a oner. He spun round and went back to the bar, holding up his hand to be served again.

It took two hands for Davy to hold his whisky glass, with his fingers intertwined as if warming his hands, or he was an alky with the shakes.

‘Here.’ Lonie put the other double glass of whisky beside his half-drunk pint, near the ashtray in which his Silk Cut smouldered. ‘Get it doon.’ Lonie took a sip of his whisky to encourage him, before sitting down across from him. ‘Drink helps us to forget and helps us remember.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Davy’s lips trembled as he took the first sip. His eyes met Lonie’s and for a second it seemed they understood each other. Davy looked away.

‘Does he know about me and Audrey?’ Lonie’s main concern was for her, rather than himself.

Davy looked at his black slip-on shoes and nodded that he did. ‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head as if trying to escape from his thoughts and when he looked up at Lonie the branching veins in his eyes stood as if stained red. ‘I was terrified.’ He allowed himself the luxury of a sip of whisky. ‘I am terrified.’

‘Who’s involved?’

Davy’s pigeon neck disappeared into his jumper, a conjuring trick, so his head squatted on his body. He chewed the corner of his mouth before speaking. ‘The fatman’s working for him up the stairs, the guy that owns the paper, but it’s the fatman that pulls all the strings.’

‘Ah could have figured that out myself. Who else?’

‘Logan, The Lord Provost.’ Davy swallowed his whisky back, his face and body registering the shock of it going down so quickly.

‘Aye, Ah thought that.’ Lonie sipped at his whisky, his eyes on Davy’s face and mouth.

‘Muldoon. The Chief of Police.’ Davy had a another hit of whisky with that one, to give him courage.

‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’ Lonie replied. ‘Now we know how Bisset does what he fuckin’ well likes.’

‘A lot of rich nobs…And Dennis Neil.’

Lonie laughed. It was the only thing he could do. Neil ran everything in Glasgow from stealing stamps in the Post Office to gun running for the UDA and UDF. He stumbled from his chair, dazed, to get another round in, but Davy dragged himself from his seat and grabbed at his wrist.

‘I’ll get it.’ Davy patted him on the shoulder and went to the bar. He brought back two double doubles. The only answer seemed to burn the cancer of thought out of their brains. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen.’ He plonked the drinks down and edged past Lonie. He took a quick hit of whisky and his eyes watered.

‘Whit have they got planned?’ Lonie matched him drink for drink, half for half.

‘Don’t know.’ Davy began the slow slide down his seat and under the table. ‘Same as those boys I’d imagine.’

Lonie sat up straighter. ‘Whit happened to them?’

‘Crematorium: Lynn Park. They went up like that.’ Devy tried to blow through his mouth, to show he meant smoke, but succeeded only in getting spittle on his shirt.

‘Were you there?’

Davy looked across at Lonie, tried to gauge the distance between them, not just across the table, but an hour ago, two days ago, a week ago. He slid a little further under the table. ‘Nah.’ He shook his head as if he could make it go away.

‘How do you know then?’ Lonie took another drink. But the more he drank the more sober he felt. He noticed the young groups of lads had drifted away through the far away door, but he was sure they’d be back later, and didn’t want to be there when that happened; especially when Davy started bubbling, great big tears, and gulping for breath. The barman and a few of the older men looked over, but said nothing, probably thinking they were talking about the game at the weekend.

‘Because they nailed my hands and feet to a wooden floor.’ He held the palms of his hands up for Lonie to see, as if it was a hold up. His right foot started kicking off his left shoe.

‘Alright.’ Lonie reached over and patted his arm. ‘Calm down. Millions wouldn’t but Ah believe you.’

‘They were goin’ to cut out my tongue. Had one of them dental clamps that keep your mouth open.’

Lonie turned toward the barman and looked apologetic. ‘Let’s get going.’ He kicked Davy’s shoe under the table and reached for his fag packet, sticking it in his pocket. ‘We’re too conspicuous now.’ He looked sideways at the old men near him and turned his neck ever so slightly so that he could see the barman. ‘One phone call -- we’re fucked.’ He polished off two whiskys in a row. ‘Nah, Ah’m fucked.’ He shoved a whisky towards Davy. ‘C’mon, let’s get goin’.’