The Cleaner - John Milton #2 Read online

  Once again, Elijah said nothing. Pops hardly knew the boy, but he had never seen him like this. He looked older, more severe, his lack of emotion even a little frightening. Pops realised with a sudden flash of insight that the boy reminded him of himself, five years earlier. Anger throbbed out of him. He was frightened for him.

  Elijah pulled back the handle and pushed the door open. He got out, slammed it behind him and crossed the pavement to the door of the studio.

  “Alright, then,” Pops said in his wake. He got out, locked the car and followed.

  The studio was on the first floor of the building, above the restaurant. Pops held his thumb against the buzzer and spoke into the intercom. The lock popped open and he went inside. Pops knew the history of the place. Bizness had bought the two flats that had been here before and spent fifty thousand knocking them through into one large space. He followed the dingy flight of steps upwards, frayed squares of carpet on the treads and framed posters of BRAPPPP! hung on the walls on either side of him. They were ordered chronologically, and the pictures nearer the ground floor, before the collective discovered that popularity was inextricably tied to notoriety, even seemed a little naïve. The final poster before the door at the top of the stairs was of Bizness, standing alone, bare chested, holding a semi-automatic MAC-10 pistol in one hand and smoking a joint with the other. Pops remembered the first time he had seen the poster. He had been awed, then, a black man with power who was unafraid of putting a finger up at society’s conventions; now, he found it all predictable and depressing. There was no message there, no purpose. The power was illusory. It was all about the money.

  The sound of heavy bass thudded from the room at the stop of the stairs. The interior door was open and Pops pushed it aside. The rooms beyond comprised a small kitchen strewn with takeaway packaging and an area laid out with plush sofas and a low coffee table. At the other side of the building was the studio itself, sealed off behind a glass screen with its recording booth and mixing suite. The rest area was busy with people and the noise was cacophonous; the latest BRAPPPP! record was playing through the studio’s PA, the repetitive drone blending with the shouts and whoops of the people in the room, everyone struggling to make themselves heard. Pops recognised several members of the collective and the hangers-on who trailed them wherever they went. Bizness was sitting with his back against the arm of the sofa, his legs stretched out across it, his feet resting in Laura’s lap. He was shirtless, exposing the litany of tattoos that stretched across his skin. The word GANGSTER had been tattooed across his stomach in gothic cursive, the letters describing a long, lazy arc above his navel. IN GUNS WE TRUST was written, two words apiece, across the backs of his hands.

  Laura looked up as Pops entered, her eyes flickering to his face for a moment. There was barely a moment of recognition before her unfocussed gaze washed over him. The muscles in her face were loose, flaccid. He tried to hold her attention but it was a waste of time. She turned her face to the low table in front of her where several lines of cocaine had been arranged across the surface. She ignored them, languidly reaching her fingers for the crack pipe that trailed tendrils of smoke up towards the ceiling. She grasped it and put it to her lips, inhaled and then closed her eyes. Pops’s heart sank. She toked, the smoke uncurling from her nostrils and rolling up past her cheeks, obscuring her blank eyes. She ignored him completely. It was as if he was not there.

  Bizness grinned at them both, displaying his gold teeth. He reached over for a remote control and quietened the music so he could more easily be heard. “Look who it is, my two best bredderz. Big Pops and little JaJa. Aight, bruv?”

  Pops felt his hands curling into fists. “Bizness,” he said, forcing himself to smile. He could not stop himself from looking over at Laura again, just for an instant, and Bizness noticed. He said nothing––there was no need for it––but his lips curled up in a derisive grin, the light glittering off the gold caps. Everyone in the room knew what had happened, that Bizness had clicked his fingers and taken her from him, doing it without compunction, like it was no big thing. Not even acknowledging it to his face was the biggest dis of all. It said Bizness didn’t care. That Pops’ reaction was irrelevant, and that there was nothing he could do about any of it. Pops felt his anger flare but he forced himself to suppress it. There was no move for him to play. Laura was gone. She was with Bizness now, for however long he wanted her. If he showed his anger there would be hype, and there could only be one outcome after that.

  Bizness turned to Elijah. “And my little soldier, how are you doing, younger?”

  “I’m good,” Elijah said. He went over to Bizness and held up his closed fist.

  Bizness looked around the room, his mouth open in an expression of delighted surprise. “Look at the little hoodrat,” he exclaimed. Elijah ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders. “He got some serious attitude, innit?” Bizness bumped fists with him. “So what happened to you the other night, soldier?”

  “Sorry ‘bout that,” Elijah said. He angled his face a fraction, enough to turn his gaze onto Pops, and it was clear from his expression that he blamed him for not carrying out his instructions. “The fight––I lost my nerve. Won’t happen again.”

  “That right? You still wanna get involved?”

  “Yeah. For definite.”

  “Because that problem ain’t gone away. We made our point but the little fassy ain’t listening. Put up another message for us last night. You see it?”

  Elijah shrugged again. There was a open laptop resting on the table. Bizness stretched across and tabbed through the open windows to YouTube. The video he wanted had already been selected and he dragged the cursor across and set it to play. Pops had seen Wiley T’s uploads before and this met the usual pattern. The boy was rapping on the streets of Camden as a friend filmed him with a handheld camera. The bars he was dropping were all about Bizness and the brawl at the party. Bizness was right: Wiley was not backing down, and, if anything, the incident had made him even more brazen. It was an escalation, a direct and unambiguous dis. He questioned Bizness’s heritage, his legitimacy and the size of his manhood, all in artfully rhymed couplets. He ended by calling him out for a battle, doubting that the invitation would be taken up. Wiley was good, much better than Bizness, and it was that, Pops knew, rather than the content of his bars, that had upset him so badly.

  Elijah watched the video, his face darkening. “He’s got some front,” he said when it came to an end, “don’t he?”

  “Fucking right he got some front. Everyone knows I’d take him down if we battled, aight, so what’s the point? Nah, bruv. There ain’t nothing else for it––he’s got to get merked. Can I count on you, young ‘un? You ready to stand up?”

  He turned to Pops again, his eyes blazing with purpose. “Yeah,” he said. “Man needs to get dooked, innit. Be my pleasure to do it for you.”

  Bizness laughed harshly and, following their cue, the others in the room quickly followed suit. “Little man found his balls, eh? Good for you––good for you. You still got the piece?”

  “In my bedroom.”

  Bizness extracted himself from the sofa, stretching himself out to his full height. He took a joint from the boy next to him and inhaled deeply. He knelt down, taking Elijah by both shoulders, and breathed the smoke into his face. “We’ll make a rude boy out of you, JaJa. A good little soldier.”

  * * *

  34.

  JOHN MILTON sat in the threadbare armchair in the front room of the house, staring at the stains on the wall and thinking. He had left Blissett House soon after Elijah. Sharon had been upset at the confrontation and, apologising as she did so, told him that it was probably better if he left. She said that what had happened had been a good thing, and that she didn’t regret it, but that she had to put her child first. Milton understood. He had not planned for the night to develop as it had, and he had been surprised at his reaction. There was something about her that drew him in, her endearing combination of quiet digni
ty and vulnerability, perhaps. She was attractive but he wished he had shown more restraint. Elijah had been making progress and now he did not know how much damage had been done.

  His mobile was on the table. It started to ring. Milton picked it up and checked the display. He did not recognise the number.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Hello?” said the caller.

  “Who’s this?”

  “You the man? The man in the park?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “I met you a week ago. You were looking for Elijah.”

  “Which one are you?”

  “You gave me your number.”

  Milton remembered the boy: older than the others, bigger, a strange mixture of tranquillity and threat in his expression. “I remember,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Call me Pops.”

  “No––your real name.”

  There was a pause as the boy weighed up whether he should say. “Aaron,” he said eventually.

  “Alright, then, Aaron. I’m John. How can I help you?”

  The boy’s voice was tight, tense. “You were looking out for JaJa, weren’t you? You wanted to help him.”

  There was something in the boy’s tone that made him fearful. “What about him?”

  “He’s in trouble. He’s in real trouble, man. Serious.” There was a pause. “Shit, I’m in trouble too. Both of us.”

  “You better tell me about it. What’s the matter?”

  “Just so I know, you ain’t a journalist, are you?”

  “No.”

  “And you ain’t no police, neither?”

  “No.”

  “What do you do, then, you so sure you can help?”

  “I can’t tell you that. But all you need to know is that I have a particular set of skills, and that if you’re in trouble, then I can help you. Beyond that you’ll have to trust me.” There was a pause on the line and Milton noticed that he was holding his breath. “Are you still there?” he said.

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “I’m here.”

  “It sounds like we need to talk.”

  “Yeah. Can we meet?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now? I’m in the park, next to the fountains. You around?”

  “I can be.”

  “I’ll be here for another thirty minutes, then.”

  The boy ended the call without saying anything else.

  Milton walked the short distance to Victoria Park and made his way to the fountain. It had been another stifling day, and the grass was parched and flattened in squares from where picnic blankets had been stretched across it. The night was darkening, the wide expanses gloomy between the amber cones from the occasional streetlamp. A jumbo jet slid across the gloaming, its lights winking red as it curled away to the west. The big estate buildings on the southern edges of the park hunched over the fringe of trees and railings, twenty storey blocks of concrete, depressingly stolid, oppressive. It was a changing of the guard: the last joggers, cyclists and dog walkers passed around the outer circle as groups of youngsters gathered on the benches beneath the streetlamps to smoke and joke with one another. Milton noticed all of them, a habitual caution so ingrained that he did not even realise it, but he paid them no heed. He followed the outer circle around from the pub and then took the diagonal path that cut straight to the memorial and the glassy squares of water that attended it. A homeless man sat at one of the benches, massaging the ears of the thin greyhound huddling next to him. There was no-one else. Milton walked slowly around the monument, making a show of examining it, before sitting at one of the empty benches to fuss with a lace that did not need tying. The water was still and flat and perfectly reflective, a rind of moon floating in the shallow depth. He set to waiting.

  Twenty minutes passed before he looked up to see someone else turn off the outer path and head towards the monument. Despite the late heat, the figure was wearing a bomber jacket over the top of a hoodie, the hood pulled over the head like a cowl. Pristine white trainers almost shone in the gloom.

  Milton got up from the bench and idled towards the monument. As the boy got closer he recognised the face beneath the hood. His skin was black and perfectly smooth, his eyes and teeth shining.

  “Aight,” the boy said in a low monotone, angling his head in greeting.

  “Hello, Aaron.”

  “We can head towards the pond, over there. Ain’t no-one there this time of the day.”

  They set off side-by-side. Milton studied the boy through the corner of his eye. He was large, not much shorter than Milton but heavier, and he walked with a roll to his step, his head and shoulders slouched forwards. He dressed like all the others: hooded jacket, low-slung jeans with the crotch somewhere between his knees, the brand new trainers, pieces of expensive jewellery. It was the uniform of the gang, topped off by the purple bandana knotted around his throat. He wore it all naturally. He was quiet and predisposed, his eyes on the path. They continued that way for a minute, Milton happy to wait until the boy was ready to speak.

  They were approaching the pond when he finally spoke. “JaJa needs help,” he said. “He’s got in with a bad man. I tried to keep him out of it but he ain’t listening to me any more. Ain’t nothing else I can do for him.”

  “Is it Bizness?”

  “You know him?”

  “Elijah spoke to me after he was arrested. I know a little about him. Is he dangerous?”

  “What, man, are you fucking high? Is he dangerous? Seriously? Bizness’s a psycho, innit? He was always bad, but since his ego got to be like it is now, he’s turned into a monster.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You said you needed help, too.”

  He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Bizness’s the same age as I am. We were at school together. We used to be tight but we ain’t no more and he’s finished with me. I dunno, the last few weeks it’s as if he’s been provoking me, starting hype like he wants to get a reaction. I seen it happen before. He don’t let anyone get too influential, start taking his thunder, see, and then when they do, when he thinks they might be getting to be a threat”––he clicked his fingers––“then he gets rid of them. One way or another.”

  “And you’re a threat.”

  “Nah, man. I ain’t like that. I want out, but he don’t know that.”

  “So tell him.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Don’t work that way, man. You get in, you’re all the way in. You ain’t done until he tells you you’re done. And there ain’t no talking with him.”

  Milton reflected that he knew what that felt like. He said nothing.

  “Look, it ain’t about me, not really. I am getting out, whether he likes it or not. It’s the younger who needs help.”

  They reached the pond. A sign describing the nearby flora and fauna had been defaced with graffiti––Milton guessed that the 925 was a rival gang tag––and the bracket that should have held the buoyancy aid had been vandalised, snapped wood showing white through the creosote like splintered bone. Pops sat down on the bench and took a joint from his pocket. “I come down here now and again,” he said, lighting the joint with his lighter. “I know it sounds pathetic, but I used to be in the Scouts, when I was younger. The fucking Scouts. We used to come down here once a year and dredge the whole lot. You wouldn’t believe the things people used to dump––washing machines, shopping trolleys, every thing covered in sludge and weeds. We always joked we’d pull out a dead body one day. What I know now, I’m half surprised we never did. There are guns and shanks in there, I know that for a fact.”

  The boy offered the joint to Milton. He shook his head. The boy shrugged and smoked hard on it instead.

  “So tell me about Elijah.”

  “You know about what happened at the party?”

  “He told me.”

  “There’s a man Bizness wants to have shot. JaJa mention Wiley?

  “A little.”

  “Bi
zness’s got beef with him. Wants him gone. That was what the club was all about. He wants JaJa to do it. He had the gun that night. I thought I’d got through to him. I sent him home when I saw what was happening. I thought he’d listen to me. Something must’ve happened since.” His voice trailed off. Milton said nothing. “So then I got a call from Bizness yesterday to say I had to pick JaJa up and bring him to his studio. I never seen the younger like that before––he was angry, man, he had this proper screwface on like he was ready to fucking explode. Bizness loves that, course, and he asks him whether he’s ready to do what he wants him to do with Wiley.”

  A dog walker skirted the far side of the pond. His dog, a pitbull heavy with a fat collar of muscle, chased the ducks into the water.

  “And Elijah said he’d do it?”

  Pops nodded.

  Milton felt sick to the pit of his stomach.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know the details. Bizness won’t tell me. I’m not that close to him and I don’t think he trusts me no more, anyway.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Can’t think of nothing.” He paused. “Except––”

  “Go on.”

  The boy clenched his teeth so hard that the strong line of his jaw jutted from his face. “My girl’s got involved with him, too. She’s vulnerable. Got a weakness for drugs and he won’t look out for her like I did. Last time I saw her, she was smoking crack with him. It’ll be skag next. She’ll end up on the streets for him, I seen that before, too. Or she’ll end up raped, or dead.”

  Milton sat quietly.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Milton said.

  “You said you could help me, man.”

  “I will. But you have to work with me.”

  “How?”

  “First things first: you have to speak to the police.”

  Pops kissed his teeth. “Go to the Feds? You know what would happen to me if Bizness found out I’d been grassing? I’d end up in that fucking pond with a bullet between my eyes.” Pops stood abruptly. “If that’s the best you can do, we’re finished. Police aren’t going to do nothing until JaJa’s got blood on his hands and my girl is fucking dead. I’m wasting my time with this bullshit.”