Free Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks Page A

didn't find it, she called you."
    "Why?"
    "Obviously didn't reckon you very loyal."
    "She would've got a surprise, then."
    "Yeah, and you would've got one with Frank." I reached for my cigarettes, cracked the window a little more.
    "Thought you said he was old. I can handle a fuckin' pensioner nae bother."
    "He's getting on there, yes, but don't let the age fool you. Just means he's got fewer years to lose."
    Cobb mulled that one over. Then he said, "You know how to pick 'em, don't you?"
    I had to admit, the man had a point. Played for a fool, Nora trying to turn me into the new Frank in her life, then buggering off to the old one just as soon as he was free. And there was me, all the while, acting all big time, just so she'd stay.
    Christ, there was nothing as blind or as stone daft as a man in love. It made me fizz inside, thinking about how she'd fucked me over. And if I'd seen her up the road, I'd have stamped Cobb's foot to the floor and ploughed the Volvo straight through the bitch. I could almost hear her slam, roll and tumble. Saw the blood, and I had to shut my eyes.
    When I opened them again, I was staring at the jacket in my lap. Put two in Heinz's head, and he hadn't done half the shit to me that Nora had.
    For all that, though, I still missed her like a last breath.

     

COBB
     
    Here was something that popped in my head – Sigmund Freud, right, once said that the Irish were a race of people who'd never benefit from psychoanalysis. They were too fuckin' mental, you see. They were a lost cause. Course, Freud was scared of ferns, so he was plenty tapped himself, but sat next to Farrell, I was beginning to think he might have a point anyway.
    Something had gone wrong in there. He was quiet, but I didn't need to hear him talking to know he'd taken a dose in the napper. Quiet, but he wasn't being the maudlin fucker anymore, which was fuckin' unnerving. There was an alertness to him now, like when a Doberman sees a cat – that kind of stare that meant he'd found his true calling, and that true calling involved fucking someone up.
    "I want a drink," he said in a flat voice.
    "Got stubbies back at the flat."
    "I mean a proper drink." Farrell pulled out his wallet. "Drop me off at an off-licence. A decent one. None of your corner shops."
    I found a Thresher and Farrell jumped out of the car before we stopped. Straight into the offy like a T1000, and he was quick to point out what he wanted. He came back with a bottle of Bushmills, a couple of four-packs of Stella and forty Dunhills. Between the whiskey, Wifebeater and full-tar nails, I reckoned it was safe to say the healthy living kick was well and truly over.
    Farrell popped a can, swallowed. Nodded at the road. "Onwards, Jimmy. Find us a chipper."
    Didn't look like the kind of gadgie it was safe to argue with, so I was a good boy and did what I was told, took him up to the Vegas Chippy, where I got my usual and Farrell got a fish supper so doused in vinegar the smell of it tugged at the hairs in my nose. We were going to take it back up to the flat, but a police car parked outside the block put the kibosh on that. Nobody behind the wheel, which meant there were at least two of the bastards nosing around. Farrell opened his chips and got stuck in. The growl in my gut told us to do the same, so I did.
    "You leave anything incriminating up there?" said Farrell, chewing.
    "Just the thirty keys of china I was holding for a mate."
    Farrell stopped chewing.
    "Having you on, man," I said.
    He continued. "I hate guards."
    "These lads aren't guards, they're bobbies. They're thick as their own shite, I'm telling you. Not a threat. We just need to wait 'em out."
    "They got round here quick enough."
    "We were away all night, man. And this could be owt. Could be Goose's lads got picked up and spun 'em a yarn, or else one of my neighbours saw the door busted in and played the Good Samaritan. Or they could be after someone else. It's not like I live in a fuckin' monastery –