Logan, page 13
part #2 of Tough London Series
Then Logan’s eyes get really sad, sadder than I’ve ever seen them.
‘Then I made the mistake I always made with him. I relaxed. I thought everything was going to be OK. I made the mistake of trusting him.’
He sighs a deep, deep sigh.
‘When I found him, I didn’t realise that I was already too late. He was still breathing, even though it was shallow and irregular. I couldn’t have knon that no matter what I did, he was already gone. The syringe was still in his fucking vein, sticking out of his arm like a bad joke. I pulled it out of course, as if that would do anything. By the time the ambulance arrived, he’d gone blue. I tried everything I could. I pumped his chest with my hands so hard I must have broken a rib. I breathed air into his lungs for ten minutes, kissing him again and again on those cold lips. But it was all for nothing. If I’d just known he was using again, I could have had Narcan there, I could have saved him. But I trusted him. So I lost him.’
‘Logan I’m so sorry,’ I say. I had no idea he’d been through something as traumatic as this.
He seems to snap out of his sadness with a start, and looks at me with kindness in his eyes.
‘But obviously that’s not how I got the scar.’
I stroke his hand, feeling the warm skin under my fingers.
He continues. ‘After the funeral was a really dark time for me. I drank more than I should have done, and I got involved with some people that I really shouldn’t have gotten involved with. It was through one of those people, through a friend of mine called Dizzy, that I found out the name of the scumbag who’d sold Josh the dose that had killed him.
‘Not only did he have a name for me, but he had a description, and he gave me a location that the guy dealt from. Turns out he was just a street-corner thug, and seems like Josh had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘So I decided that I was going to be in the wrong place at the right time, confront that wanker and take him down.’
There’s a new clarity to his expression now, as though he’s re-living some deep-buried memory.
‘I’ll never forget the night I finally tracked him down. It was cold and it was clear. It had been raining, but that night it was just crystal and dark. I remember the sound my boots made in the puddles. I remember the patterns my breath made as it hung in the air. But the thing I remember most clearly of everything is him. When I saw him I was shocked by how normal he looked. He didn’t look evil, he didn’t look like the kind of person who could kill someone else, even if it had been indirectly. He was just standing on a street corner, with someone else from his crew and he was smiling and laughing. They were smoking, the both of them.
‘To be truthful, I didn’t even know what I was going to do. I hadn’t planned it out so clearly. I’d never been violent, but I have to admit that since Josh died I’d been fantasising about finding the guy who did it to him and, I don’t know, ripping his head off or something extreme.
‘So I had this like, vague plan that I was just going to show up and wail on this guy, really take him to town. But when I showed up and he was just standing there, laughing with his friend, I totally lost my nerve. I couldn’t go through with it.
‘But I’d already stepped out from the shadows.’
My heart is racing as he tells the story. I’m trying to imagine what must have been going through his head. He was obviously in a very dark place when this had all been taking place, poor guy.
‘So I walked up to him, and I confronted him. I told him what had happened, that Josh had taken drugs he’d given him and that now he was dead.
‘What I didn’t expect was how sympathetic he was. He said that there had been some dope cut with fentanyl in the area, which is a super-strong heroin substitute. He said it was basically impossible to tell the difference between the two. The only way to know would have been to try some of it. Josh, with his reduced tolerance from staying clean for so long had been particularly vulnerable to the stuff. He hadn’t stood a chance.
‘There was something about the way the dealer was explaining it all to me, that started to get me really mad. It was like he was giving a sermon, or a lecture or some shit, like he was acting all professional. But this prick was a drug dealer, the scum of the earth, and it was because of him that Josh was six feet under.
‘I think he sensed a change in me, because he started to back up, and his friend got agitated. It was when I pushed him in the chest and told him that it wasn’t good enough that things got physical.’
He clasps his hands together and looks down at the ground. Logan looks ashamed now, like a man defeated.
‘And I lost myself. I don’t remember much of it, but I know I was in the wrong. It’s not my place to dispense justice to whoever I see fit with no trial, no due process. The police saw us fighting. The friend of the dealer had a knife. That’s a stab wound, the scar. I messed him up pretty bad though. Got rid of the knife, but he ended up in a wheel chair. I’m just lucky I didn’t use the knife on him. So that’s why I was in jail. Assault and grievous bodily harm. And I deserved it.’
There are tears rolling down his face.
‘And the worst thing about it all is that I know just how disappointed in me Josh would be. There’s no way he would have wanted me to do what I did that night. I did it just for myself, not for him. Let me tell you, I realised that the moment I got into my cell, and the thought tormented me for the three years I was in there.’
‘Oh Logan,’ I say, feeling emotion growing in my chest, ‘I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through.’ I take him in my arms and hold him as he weeps, and I cry with him.
Later, after a magical day of discovery and tenderness, we go to bed together. As we lie next to each other, I dream about what might happen in the future for us, whether this strange love affair might grow, or whether it’s doomed to fail, like so many new relationships. I feel his chest rise and fall next to mine, and the sweet light from the street-lamps near my flat gives the room an unusual orange glow.
When I close my eyes, I feel certain that something good is going to come of it.
That makes it so much worse when I wake up the next morning, and see that Logan is nowhere to be seen.
20
LOGAN
* * *
God damn it Dizzy. God fucking damn it.
The message comes through early. Really early.
Logan, bro, I need your help. Bad shit is going down. Really bad shit. I’m coming to your place.
I ignore it and try to get back to sleep. The sun isn’t even up yet, and I’m lying next to a gorgeous, naked man for fuck’s sake. I don’t want my dumb-ass friend to ruin the only good thing in my life right now.
But more messages start to come through, one after the other. I put my phone on silent to make sure that I don’t wake Clark.
Serious Logan, this is bad, bad shit.
Where the fuck are you Logan, I’m outside. Why aren’t you answering the door? Haven’t I done enough for you over the years, fam?
Logan fucking wake up!
He was outside my fucking place? What a nonce. There’s nothing for it, I’m going to have to head over there and let him in, tell him that I don’t want anything to do with him, and then kick him out before coming back over to Clark’s place. Easy, right?
It’s hard enough just to get out of bed. Clark looks so good, and now I know just how good he feels. Plus it’s freezing. Who in the world enjoys getting out of a warm bed into a cold bedroom?
I fire off a text message to Dizzy, telling him to hold tight for half an hour, then I pull my pants and shirt on, kiss Clark lightly on the forehead, and open the front door. Lucky it’s not too far from King’s Cross to Camden.
The world seems pretty damn good today. I surprised myself by just how much I opened up to Clark last night. I like maybe something would come out, but the way he’d been so non-judgemental, so matter-of-fact about the shitty stuff I’ve done in my past just made me want to open up more and more. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I repaid my debt to society in prison, but for the first time, I truly feel free of the crime I committed.
‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he said later on in the evening. ‘Because you’ve made up for the things you did. You assaulted someone, sure. But he was a drug dealer. Someone who took the life of a man you loved. It’s amazing that you acted with such restraint.’
Huh. Restrained. I’ve never thought that what I did was restrained. The assault is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. But something about the way Clark spoke to me allowed me to believe that although yes, I did something dumb, it’s all OK now.
It doesn’t take me too long before I’m at my place. I think about sending a message to Clark, but I don’t want to worry him, and I for sure didn’t want to wake him.
I’m surprised by just how anxious Dizzy seems to be when I arrive. He’s sitting on the step by the entranceway to my building. He’s got a spliff in his mouth of course, but obviously that hasn’t calmed him down.
Lucky there’s no cops around, because he’s breaking the law in broad daylight.
‘For fuck’s sake Logan, Jesus, where have you been?’ He springs up to greet me, then looks over his shoulder, down the road, checking for some threat or other. Clearly all the weed has finally caught up with him and he’s as paranoid as a gangster from the 1980s.
‘I been out here for hours man,’ he says, as I take the key from my pocket, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t come here straight away man. Shit, I coulda died out here.’
‘Well I’m here now, Dizz,’ I say, turning the key.
‘No shit,’ he says, taking a deep toke from his joint.
It’s a bit depressing to return to my messy place. I feel like giving it a real spruce up now. It’s like I’m a different person coming back from Clark’s house, like something incredible has been unlocked in me.
‘So where you been, man?’ Dizzy asks.
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. In fact I can barely believe it myself.’
‘I can guess,’ he says, a roguish look in his eye. ‘In fact I think I’ve got a pretty good idea. Something to do with banging an art teacher? Is that right?’
Am I that transparent? There’s no other way he could know about where I’d been, so I guess I must just be that transparent.
‘Aren’t I the one who should be asking the questions, anyway? What’s all this bad shit you’ve gotten yourself into Dizzy? You know you can’t stay here. I already told you that.’
‘Look, Logan, you gotta know,’ his face looks distressed and maybe even scared. ‘The only reason I did what I did was so that I could start a new life. I wanted to be out of all this shit, just like you are. You feel me?’
I’ve never heard Dizzy start to make excuses for something like this before. This must be serious.
‘What is it, Dizzy, what did you do.’
Dizzy looks past me, and walks to the front door, before he gets the chain lock and fastens it.
‘Can’t be too careful, Logan, even the fucking walls have ears round here.’
‘Come on bruv, spit it out,’ I say, starting to get really worried.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Things weren’t easy for me while you were inside, you know that? You kind of abandoned me, left me to fend for myself. Shit, you weren’t just like a brother to me. You were a brother to me. And I didn’t know what to do when my brother left me. So I tried to find a new family.’
He’s pacing round the room, joint in his hand, plumes of thick smoke billowing from his mouth like fumes from a factory.
‘Which family did you find, Dizzy?’ My heart’s racing.
‘The Kings, Logan, the Kings were my new family after you left me.’
Shit. The Cross Kings are pretty much the worst gang in Kings Cross. All organised crime runs through their grubby fingers. They have a reputation for cruelty, and for stupidity, in truth. There are as many botched Kings hits as there are successful ones.
People are scared of them though, and they have a kind of boogie-man feeling. The local press loves to devote column-inches to them, and the local people love to read about them. It’s a vicious cycle that most definitely feeds the fame of the group.
‘You idiot, Dizzy,’ I say, ‘if I was like a brother to you, then how could you possibly think it would be a good idea to start running with the Kings?’
‘You weren’t there, man,’ he spits back at me. ‘You don’t know what it was like. They welcomed me in, they treated me good, like family, and it gave me a purpose, too.’
‘What was that purpose? To push drugs to little kids? To kill your rivals and trample all over the other thugs in the gang?’
‘No man. They were like a community. They cared about the local area. They provided protection for local vulnerable people.’
‘That’s bullshit, Dizzy. The Kings extort people, they sell drugs, and the run protection rackets. That’s not community service. That’s crime.’
‘Whatever man. You’ll be pleased to hear that I don’t run with them no more. I definitely don’t run with them no more.’
‘So what happened?’
Dizzy stops pacing for a second and looks me in the eye.
‘I ripped them off.’
He takes a deep drag on the joint.
‘I’ve been doing it for months. Taking more than my portion on every deal that I’ve made. It was little things to begin with, just a few hundred on every few thousand, but the more I got used to doing it, the easier it got, until finally I was skimming off thousands. Course it wasn’t long before they noticed. They ain’t mugs. At least, I couldn’t keep mugging them forever.’
I can’t believe it. Can’t believe how much shit Dizzy had got himself into.
‘Why did you do it, Dizzy? You know how dangerous those people are.’
He erupts with anger. ‘I did it because I knew you’d fucking disapprove. I wanted a way out of that scummy crowd. I figured I’d just save up enough cash so that I could just hit the road, go somewhere with lots of sun and lots of women and just put my feet up til the end of a long, good life.’
‘So what changed?’
‘You came back you sonuvabitch. My real brother. My real family. How was I meant to leave town when you were back? I had to stay, but they were already on to me, so I stayed at your place. And when you kicked me out, I had nowhere else to go.’
‘So why don’t you just leave the city?’ I say, trying to get my head around the problem.
‘I can’t leave town.’
‘But why?’
‘Where would I go? There’s got to be another way out of this situation.’ The way he is talking is so damn crazy, so much so that I consider for a moment that maybe this isn’t real, maybe it’s just some insane story he’s made up. Maybe it’s his paranoia talking, making him second-guess everything in his life.
‘So do they know about what you done? Do they know you’ve taken all their money?’
‘Mmhmm,’ he nods, his eyes grave. ‘They know. But what they don’t know is that I’ve spent all their fucking money. I’ve not got a dime left. Not a fucking cent.’
‘How much? How much did you spend?’
‘Five-hundred grand. All down the fucking toilet.’
There’s a look of complete anguish on his face. The little muscle in the corner of his eye twitches.
‘Five-hundred grand?’ How on earth had he managed to steal and spend that much money? It sounds impossible, like he has to be making it up.
‘That’s right. And I spent it all, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. All thanks to you.’
He’s talking crazy now, like he’s snapped.
‘Are you alright, Dizzy? I mean, are you really alright?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ he says, and he starts to bash the top of his head with his wrist. I surge toward him, grab his arm.
‘Stop that, Dizzy, that’s not helping.’
‘It’s helping me!’ he shouts, pushing me back. I’ve never seen him act like this before. It’s like he’s lost his mind.
‘Dizzy,’ I say, holding my hands out in front of me, ‘please, just calm down a minute brother, we can fix this. Whatever the problem is, we can fix it.’
But I’m not sure that I’m telling the truth. If Dizzy is telling the truth, if he really has stolen half a million dollars from a mob boss, then save going to the police, there is nothing I can do to help. It’s not as though I have any connections, any power I can bring to bear. And if he isn’t telling the truth, if this is some kind of psychotic episode, then I don’t have any other way of helping.
It’s an impossible situation.
The last thing I need is the heavy knock I hear at my door.
21
CLARK
* * *
I guess Logan isn’t the only person who can sneak up on people when they don’t know they’re being followed. I looked out of my window this morning and saw him on the phone, walking away from the house.
I don’t know what came over me in that second that I saw him, but I decided to just go with it. To follow him.
I pulled on a top and my jeans as quick as I could, and rushed out of the house, half-running, half-creeping. I must have looked like a mad man, trying to stay low to the ground, at the same time as trying to move as quick as I could. I just didn’t want to lose him.
I know that maybe it wasn’t the most sensible thing in the world, to follow him across town, but I don’t know, I wasn’t operating on logic and reasoning, I was just buzzing from the sheer ecstasy of the last night.
I just had this feeling that he wouldn’t be upset. I honestly thought he’d be excited to see me, that he’d find it cute that I’d followed him across town. We shared so much last night — surely he’d understand my excitement to spend more time with him.
