The Man With Only One Glove 2.

For those of you who weren’t paying attention: A voice like ice cracking under the weight of a child had just said: “Hey, Marston.”

I turned to look the voice’s owner hard in the eye. It was little Gordie Macmillan, a small-time bruiser with a hair-lip, one dog chewed ear and a bad habit of ending up on the wrong end of my fist. Whilst Gordie’s choice of employers may have been as dubious as my tax return he was fundamentally an okay guy. He was just a man trying to make his way in the world with a talent so small it made a standard measure of scotch look generous. Still, whatever bruises there may have been between us it had never been personal. Purely business.

“Hey, Marston,” he melted slightly, “word is you’re looking for that Bourbon fella?”

“Word must be taking enough steroids to run the hundred in four point eight to get around that quick.”

“Well let’s just say, for the sake of argument,” he blustered onwards, “you was looking for him. Under those circumstances a smart guy might want to try his luck down by the docks. A cousin of mine reckons they seen someone who could be a photo Bourbon acting all suspicious like.”

“Now, let’s pretend that this sort of information raised my interest even to sea level, Gordie, why would you want to tell me?” Hell, I hate these games. Why schmucks who’ve managed to forget their own mothers’ names always insist of trying to play it smart, I’ll never know.

“Well, Marston,” he tipped his hat down low, shielding his eyes, “perhaps I feel like I owe you a favour or something. You could’ve turned me over to the cops after that whole Greenwich roulette deal, but you didn’t. A man appreciates things like that.”

“Gordie,” I turned to make my merry way, “the only reason you’re not doing a twenty stretch is that all the evidence went down with the god-damned barge.”

I popped the lock on the old Ford and slid behind the wheel leaving Gordie to scratch his behind in wonder. I pulled away and headed for the river. Sure, Gordie was about as subtle as a train wreck at a gospel picnic, but as otherwise I had squat I decided to check it out.

When people talk about London’s docks they usually mean penthouse apartments with TVs that swear back to you and all the charm of an arrivals lounge in Lithuania’s third biggest city – whatever the hell that may be called. Either that or they mean the lingering glamour of penis-enlargement architecture over shadowing soulless pseudo-Mediterranean riverside cafe culture that closes up at the weekends because no-one really keeps their heart there.

But there are still places along the Thames where boats unload into haunted warehouses, where dogs gnaw at suspiciously sized bones and men wake up in the mornings with blood in their eyes and there are sufficient dark. Down here there’s always enough murky corners to find an illegal solutions to most problems. Places down near the sugar refinery at the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel or further up towards the concrete works near Woolwich. These are the last real docks. This was where Gordie meant.

The old Ford bounced down an untreated road, slumping drunkenly into a pot-hole. Two weeks worth of rain water turned shit-brown by the silt slopped over the bonnet. I didn’t care. I couldn’t even remember what colour the damn car was supposed to be.

I got out and lit a cigarette, buying myself a few seconds to scope the area. Most of the buildings had steel grates over the doors to keep the squatters out and the secrets in. The remains of smack works littered the floor and in the corner there lay a puke stained blanket still steaming. It reminded me of my apartment the other Sunday morning only without the discarded panties that I couldn’t remember stealing.
From the distance there was a howl like someone finding their wife’s credit card bill. I headed towards it, trying to use the shadows for cover.

Around the corner I saw a foot jutting out of an open door, twisted at a painful angle. The rest of the leg stretched inside. I squatted down to get a closer look and out the corner of my eye I saw something shimmer. A glove. A leather glove. I picked it up. Something like dried paint flaked under my fingers nails. Like dried paint, but not. Then something that felt like a sock full of wet sand slugged me around the back of the head. A flash bulb exploded behind my eyes followed by every light in the world being simultaneously extinguished.

***

“Sit down,” the tiny pistol flicked towards the chair as just a writer I did as I was threatened. I perched nervously on the edge of my seat, moist palms gripping his knees. The gun’s owner sat down opposite, he appeared to instantly relax into the chair and folded his legs high to reveal no socks. His suit shrugged like it didn’t give damn. All the while I was mesmerised by the tip of the pistol, like a moth burning in a candle, yet its aim never wavered, never even flinched.

“Bet you’re wondering why I’m here?”

I nodded. I wanted to say something. But my mouth was too dry to speak. The words died in my throat. I wanted to act, to do something, anything, but my heart felt as though it might rupture. Tension and fear scratched at my eyes. I wanted words to be the only things that died.

“You see, things is: I need a favour. I need your help.”

“You’ve a bloody funny way of asking for it,” I finally gasped.
The man looked at his gun as though he’d forgotten all about it. “Yeah, well,” he placed it on the table between us. The table appeared to flinch as the chilled metal touched down. “I’m a simple man. I go with what I know. What I’m used to.”

I splayed my hands onto the table and for a second wondered who would reach the gun first. I looked the man in the eye and a glint seemed to say ‘don’t even try it.’

“Why do you need my help?”

The man leaned closer and growled. “I need you to tell me a story.”