Читать книгу Mr Cleansheets - Adrian Deans - Страница 12

Meanwhile, back in Sydney, Vinnie (The Shiv) Parsons was under the shower in the Qantas Club, cleaning and scouring the last traces of the stinking mess from his eyebrows, nose and behind his ears, his mind filling with wrath and murder.

Pain was an unusual sensation for him. Pain was something he inflicted on others, but didn’t experience himself - other than the torn skin and bruised knuckles that are part and parcel of life in the Blue Fury. And that hardly counted as pain. That was more a form of pleasure to be savoured while the victims were being put back together in a hospital somewhere.

A hospital if they were lucky - dumped in a canal or buried under a building site if they weren’t.

But if injury was unusual, insult was absolutely fahkin’ foreign. Vinnie had a powerful sense of vengeance, and now that someone had not only laid hands on him, but humiliated him in a manner so profoundly that it singed his brain even to touch on it, his mind lost all coherence in its desire for payback, and was simply filled with a red, burning rage and a deliciously overwhelming desire to trample and rend and smash that United cunt, Danny Malone. He trembled with ecstasy as he beheld a vision of himself wallowing in the smashed bones and blood of the ex-United goalkeeper, in front of 100,000 skinheads at Wembley Stadium. The old Wembley - not that shite new one the fahkin’ Aussies ‘d built.

Vinnie averted his eyes from the turd-smeared shirt and strides flung into the corner of the shower and gingerly touched the huge lump on the back of his head where it had come into violent contact with the porcelain. He ran his tongue over his torn gums and smashed lips. He was missing a tooth and one eye was closed, but his nose, amazingly, was fine.

His two mates, Barry and Bones, had bought some new trousers and undies and left them draped over a peg for him, trying not to laugh as they tiptoed from the room.

“Oy!” shouted Vinnie. “Get back in ‘ere!”

He turned off the shower and began toweling himself as Barry and Bones shuffled sheepishly back into the dim and steamy chamber - Barry with two black eyes and a cut and swollen lip, and Bones with a broken nose bent sharply left and bruised ribs. But they were in better shape than Vinnie and were trying desperately not to grin at his distress. Vinnie the Shiv was capable of some extreme nastiness.

Vinnie stood naked, covered with tatts and scars, and beheld his cronies - similarly shaven headed and illustrated, like three extras from The Bill.

“Right. Now what fahkin’ ‘appened?”

Barry and Bones glanced at each other, then Bones said, “It was all a bit quick, mate. You fell over an’—”

“Why was I totally covered in turd?” interrupted Vinnie.

There was a difficult silence.

“It’s not like I’m some kind of German porn star,” continued Vin as the others eyed him nervously. “So naturally I start to wonder: ‘ow did I get covered in shite? An’ why did my two best mates do nuffin’ to prevent it?”

Barry and Bones glanced a warning at each other. Life for them was a constant and cautious navigation of Vinnie’s moods, but such was the lot of lieutenants in the Blue Fury. It was well known that Vinnie the Shiv was totally barking, but that was the whole point. You had to be mad to join the BF - and even madder to get to the top. Nominally, the BF was a Chelsea supporters group, but none of them had actually been to a game for years. They spent most of their time arranging brawls, but had recently moved into more mainstream organised crime. Vinnie and his colleagues had been in Australia setting up a new branch of the BF to extend the network and things had been going nicely - first class and designer lager all the way - until the confrontation with Danny Malone.

Bones decided to take his courage in his hands: “Sorry mate, we give up. ‘Ow did yer get crap all over yerself?”

Vinnie’s look was withering.

“I was fahkin’ out, ya cunt! He got in a lucky one an’ I bashed me ‘ead against the wall. Then while I’m out, ‘e’s taken serious fahkin’ liberties. An’ where the fack were you lot? S’posed to be fahkin’ ‘ard? ‘Ard as shite!”

The overt damage to his colleagues finally registered, and even the surprised raising of his eyebrows caused him pain.

“Farrr-kinell!” said Vinnie. “So ‘e gave you blokes a slappin’ an’ all?”

There was finally a return to the traditional Blue Fury camaraderie, and despite the defeat, they all had a bit of a laugh - united against the world. It was nice like that, thought Barry, but it never lasted.

“You know what?” reflected Bones. “I’m not so sure that really was Danny Malone.”

“You what?”

“It looked like him, in the face an’ all, but that geezer was ‘ard as nails. Danny Malone’s always been a skinny bastard.”

“Bollocks!” erupted Vinnie, deeply offended at the prospect of having been beaten up by a non-celebrity. “It’s just the telly ‘t makes him look skinny. I’m here to testify that Danny Malone, the ex-United and Northern Ireland goalkeeper, is one very hard and dangerous fucker. An’ when we get back to London, ‘e’s one very dead fucker.”

With the prospect of brutal revenge gladdening his heart, Vinnie’s face split into a broad (but painful) smile. Then, as ever, his mood suddenly changed with all the violence of a North Sea storm.

“Aaah fuck no!”

“What’s up, Vin?” asked Bones, sighing inwardly for the 80th time that day.

“Bellson!” snapped Vinnie, sensing the earliest glimmerings of potential disaster.

“I was s’posed ter meet Bellson on the plane!”