Every Night I Dream of Hell

"People are terrified of you. You've given them good reason. We know how valuable that is."

I sat listening and didn't say anything. This was the preamble to the subject that mattered: business. I already knew what was coming next. We were sitting in Kevin Currie's office, and I was listening to him speaking someone else's words.

"I don't need to tell you that there's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff that needs to be sorted out," Kevin went on.

I liked Kevin, but he was wasting my time. I knew there was a lot that needed sorting. He knew it. If he'd stuck his head out the window to alert a passer-by, there was a good chance they would already have known. Peter Jamieson ran the criminal organization Currie was a major part of, but Peter Jamieson was in jail. That meant people were trying to pick scraps from the organization, profit from temporary vulnerability while it still existed.

"There's a lot of little stuff," Kevin went on, "but even that's become more complicated. A man with your reputation, you can simplify all that. That'll be the first thing we want from you."

There were shelves on the wall behind Kevin, and most of them were filled with what looked like folders. Supposed to make him look like the legitimate businessman nobody was dumb enough to believe he was. Maybe once he could fool people, but not since Jamieson went away. That change had made Kevin a bigger player than ever, one of the group of men running the organization day to day. So the neat little office of a legit businessman probably wasn't cutting it anymore.

But it wasn't the folders I was watching. There was a little gold trophy at the end of one of the shelves, tucked in behind a leaning folder. Looked like the sort of thing you would give a mediocre amateur sportsman. I couldn't stop myself wondering what that was for. Kevin wasn't a sportsman; he was a guy in his late forties getting slowly fat and jowly.

"None of that sounds like a problem," I said. I wasn't looking to sound nonchalant, but he was reading from a not particularly interesting script.

It was obvious what had happened, I probably don't even have to tell you. Peter Jamieson knew that I, Nate Colgan, was already doing work for the organization, and doing it well. He knew that he needed someone with a reputation to start throwing some weight around on his behalf, scare away the vultures. The serious attacks needed more defending than I could provide alone, but getting rid of the opportunists would remove the sense of weakness. So he made a call to Kevin, told him to hire me permanently and told him what to say.

"I didn't figure it would be," Currie said, nodding his head and letting his relief show. "We need good people around us right now, Nate, we really do. Feels like we're taking shots from every side and I don't know where the next one will come from."

"Anything new?"

He looked left and right, like someone might have snuck into that cramped little office. "There is something. I mean, Jesus, you know what people are like, always complaining about something or other, but this seems different. We've had a couple of guys complaining about being pushed off their patch. Couple of other guys seem to have crossed over."

"To?"

"Don't know. That's the problem. Well, we sort of know. Outsiders. Can you believe it? Like there aren't enough local sharks in the water. Some English guy seems to be trying to pick off business in the city."

"You have an ID?" I asked. Knowing who the threats were was a big part of my job, and this was the first I had heard of this one. For the first time since I arrived in the office, Kevin had my interest.

"Just a name, Adrian Barrett. You heard of him?"

I shook my head, which I didn't like doing.

"English guy, like I said. We're trying to work out where he was before, who he might be working for, if anyone. Seems like he's putting the word around that he's in charge, but that could be a screen. The guy in charge doesn't turn up to do the donkey work, does he?"

Asking me, because he didn't know for himself. Kevin ran a counterfeit operation, a good and profitable one. The man knew how to run a business, let's make that clear right now. But he hadn't been involved in the dirtiest corners of the business until Jamieson's arrest pushed him there. Now he was up to his armpits in the filth and didn't know where to swim for safety.

"Not usually," I said. "Depends how big he is to start with, I suppose."

"Aye, well, he's becoming an issue. Everything's becoming a fucking issue." He was shaking his head and looking tired. The small things were mounting up, because the organization wasn't a well-oiled machine anymore. It was causing the sort of frustration that coaxed a rare sweary word out of Kevin's usually pristine mouth. "We have so many things we need to clean up," he went on. "There's stuff that still hasn't been done from months ago, stuff we should have gotten out of the way but we were too busy keeping our heads down. There's new stuff coming along all the time. You'll have to get on top of a lot of that."

"Sure. What's my title?"

"You'll be security consultant, the job Frank MacLeod was doing before he disappeared," he said. "You remember old Frank?"

I smiled a little and nodded. If you've been in the business in Glasgow at any point in the last forty years, you know of Frank MacLeod. I'd been in it for nineteen years, since I was eighteen. Disappeared was business speak for killed off and buried without the body ever being found. We knew he had been murdered on Jamieson's orders by a hitman called Calum MacLean, who then told his interesting little story to the police. But they couldn't peg the killing on Jamieson in any way, so that was another crime for which he wasn't convicted, despite the few for which he was.

"You'll be providing security advice for the club, some pubs, some bookies, some of the legit stuff that Jamieson has. You don't have to do anything though; the security mostly takes care of itself. We have people for that. Just put in the occasional appearance; I think that was all Frank used to do. Make sure the legit employees know your official job title in case the police ask them."

That all made sense, but I'll admit I was a little uncomfortable having to step into Frank's shoes. I wasn't going to be doing his job, not his real job. He was a hitman, and that was a line I'd never crossed. But people would see me doing the "security consultant" job he did and they would make the comparison. They would think I was now as important as Frank had been, and that would make me a target.

"Listen," Kevin went on, "there's a job I want you to start with, and I don't want you to laugh."

I raised my eyebrows. When you're a freelancer, you can be choosy if you really want to be. Won't do much for your reputation, and your reputation is what's going to get you work, but it's up to you what jobs you do. If you can afford to say no and you want to say no, then go ahead and say no. Not when you're an organization man. When you're on the payroll, you have to do the jobs you're given.

"I want you to go round and kick seven bells out of Kirk Webster. I know that's a pathetic place to start, but it still hasn't been done and it needs to be."

"Is that all that needs to be done?"

"Well"—Kevin shrugged—"for now it is."

I stood up and I shook his hand, like a new employee delighted to get through the job interview. There was something about that little office that made me want to play at being legit. That feeling had passed by the time I was out on the street, getting into Ronnie's car.

He had his little Astra parked in the single line of parking spaces in front of Currie's place. The car was too clean, I thought, maybe too new as well. It was a work car that nobody should ever spot. We were in Hillington, not far south of the river in an industrial area full of engineering firms and warehouses. Currie's was a single-story white building, brick front and corrugated roof, the office at the back of a large warehouse, surrounded by respectability on a street lined with trees. Nothing to suggest that the warehouse was crammed with tremendously illegal goods.

"So?" Ronnie asked me.

"I'm on the payroll."

"And me?"

"My first job will be to hire you in a security role. Congratulations."

He started the car and we pulled away, me telling him about Kirk as we went. I'll tell you about Kirk in a minute, but first I want to tell you about Ronnie Malone. I'd met him a good time ago, when he was working in a grubby little hotel near Central Station. He was there for Currie, helping his men get rooms for whatever little business they wanted to hide from others. He was wasted there.

Ronnie was smart, and smart shouldn't be left booking rooms in a half-empty hotel for barely important counterfeiters and suppliers. I persuaded Currie to move him into my employ, let me work him into something more usable.

"You come and work with me, and we'll make good money together," I had told him. "You'll have cash, you'll have interesting work, you'll have the chance to move up fast."

He'd looked at me like he was trying to find the world's politest way to say no. I wasn't there to hear no, however polite, so I leaned a little more heavily.

"All you're getting now is beer money, but you still go down if someone points the finger at you. You've helped dangerous people do terrible things. The dough you're making isn't worth that. Let me help you make more, help make the risk worthwhile."

He still looked reluctant, but he was a good boy, smart enough to realize that yes was the correct answer. So he came to work for me, and he was doing a decent job of it. Had a few little missteps, but every kid does when they're starting out. Kid: Ronnie had just turned twenty-six a few weeks before Currie put us on the payroll.

He drove me back to my house. "You go look up Kirk Webster, find out what rock he's living under. Come pick me up when you've found him. I'll handle him. It won't be a two-man job."

We were still at the point where Ronnie was doing the set-up and I was doing the dirty work. The process of educating him on how to get bloody was a slow one. He had to learn, because that was his job, but you don't rush a kid into it if you don't have to. I was taking my time, teaching him, because I enjoyed it that way.