No More Heroes: #1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series

By Roo I MacLeod

No More Heroes-#1 Dystopian Thriller HEROES Series is a fast-paced, dystopian thriller.

Scrapping on the streets suited Ben Jackman until his past returned to ask a favor. Run, hide or fight? If only the favor didn’t involve the girl.

Ben's world has gone mad. Riots and looting have brought soldiers onto the streets. Terrorism is the norm. And the man who married his childhood sweetheart, the man he once called a friend, wants him to babysit a long black sports bag.

When his ex-friend is found dead, battered and dumped in the vacant land adjoining Ben's squat, the Law and the owners of the bag invade Ben's world looking to ask questions.

He turns to his childhood sweetheart but that is his first mistake. Losing the bag is his second.

Ben must find the bag, find the killers of his old friend, and live happily ever after with the girl. Alas, two out of three is the best he can hope for.

No More Heroes, #1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series. If you love fast-paced adventure, engaging characters, a load of intrigue with a dystopian setting to wet your pants, then you’ll love the first installment of Roo I Macleod’s page-turning thriller series.

Buy No More Heroes today to enter this exciting dystopian world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roo I MacLeod
• Release date: May 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781793083289

Book preview

Two

For access to news and free stories on the Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series tap, click or type the plethora of contacts below

[e-mail]

Website......rooimacleod.com

Twitter.......@rooimacleod

Blog..........The Hapless Writer

Facebook.....rooimacleod

No More Heroes

Roo I MacLeod

Copyright © 2016 by Roo I MacLeod

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or tell your friends about No More Heroes, to help the author create more tales in the Dystopian Thriller Heroes series.

Thank you for supporting his work.

Printed in the United Kingdom

First Printing, 2016

Heroes Publishing

www.rooimacleod.com

Cover Design by David Pendergast

Chapter One

Of snow, Christmas & Trouble

AT THREE PM THE CLOCK in our town square chimed four deep tolls. Confused faces turned to the clock. The cries of the vendors quietened and Santa's Ho turned to an impotent Ha.

I retreated into the frigid dark of Smelly Alley, the last toll of the clock putting me on edge. Old Fred the fishmonger chose that moment to cross my path, our bodies colliding with a dull thump. Fred stumbled against his shops metal shutters, his keys dropping to the worn cobbles with a sharp clatter. I grabbed his arm to steady his gait, but he shrugged free and glared at my intrusion.

‘Yer making me late, you good for nothing pup.’ He hauled a large gold watch from his waistcoat, shook the timepiece and placed it to his ear.

Seriously? Pup? Late? How could he possibly know? The silly old bugger walked with a white stick and the town hall clock was arse up.

The wind rattled at his drawn shutters. Litter cavorted with folk heading for the celebrations in the square. I stooped to retrieve his keys and he snatched them from my hand before I could stand.

‘Begone,’ he muttered. His cane tapped at the cobbles as he turned and tottered toward the square.

I pulled my coat tight and readied myself for the festive madness. I was eager to chance a meeting with the barmaid from the Old Poet public house. Her shift had finished and she was known to purchase a coffee on her journey through the square. With luck, I hadn’t missed her.

The butcher’s boy blocked my path. He carried a dead pig across his narrow shoulders and was intent on sharing his burden with me.

‘Easy, eh?’ I said. ‘You closing early?’

I sidestepped his blood-stained apron, alarmed by the manic look in the dead pig’s eyes.

‘Is anniversary, in’it,’ he grunted. He turned into his shop and tried to smack me with the dead pig’s trotters.

What bloody anniversary?

A shout greeted old Fred’s entrance into the square, causing me to flinch, jump even. Man, I hated random noises. My nerves were pretty crap, to be honest. My mate Tommy said it was my diet being inadequate. He reckoned living on cigarettes and vodka had to play havoc with your nerves. Tommy was no intellectual but my diet did lack fiber for sure.

I pulled the hood over my head and followed old Fred’s steps. Fairy lights shone in the afternoon gloom. Sad droopy loops of tinsel glittered between the stalls. Vendors in Santa hats called out their wares and folk traipsed the frozen dirt bartering for a deal. Beneath the video screen, a group of carol singers shared their festive bliss. Faces beamed with Yuletide cheer, welcoming the snow bloated clouds lumbering across the sky. The weatherman had promised all good citizens a merry and white Christmas.

‘Bugger their perfect bloody Christmas,’ I muttered. I was well aware my tatty coat and I stood no chance of surviving the festive season if snow dumped on our town.

Sam the snake charmer pushed past me rushing to book his pitch by the sad old tree outside the Ostere Gazette. I kept to the awnings of the trader’s shops watching for trouble and a glimpse of the girl.

The large video screen preached of ‘good times for hard-working citizens.’

I laughed at the message as a Slotvak girl’s petite hand relieved a tourist of his wares. She smiled at me, and winked, before joining the flow of traffic, the wallet secure and her mind settled on her next kill.

A band of soldiers sat at the tables outside the Drunken Duck Hostelry. Their songs sounded loud and lewd. Ale mugs clinked, bodies embraced, but the boisterous play set the world on edge. Soldiers ruled and they liked to shoot stuff. A glass broke, a curse followed and a punch inspired a melee of drunken proportions.

I kept my head low, dodging the ruckus and the camera trained on the Duck’s tables. Me and the army had an issue with my role in life. On my eighteenth birthday conscription called and I ran. I chose to live rough on the streets rather than fight the Man’s war on terror. The army and the Man have long memories and zero tolerance with recruits not willing to front a bullet. And drunken soldiers tend to shoot, badly for sure, but I didn’t want to be testing their aim.

A hand reached out and clutched at my arm. I swiveled on my right foot and buried my left knee-deep inside my assailant’s gut. A loud oomph sounded as he doubled over and dropped to the ground. I ducked behind a bedraggled line of school girls, curious, but no way keen to learn my assailant’s identity.

‘Good times indeed,’ I muttered.

‘Ben,’ a voice called out. It sounded strained and urgent, yet familiar. I quickened my pace, keeping clear of the main camera and stopped by the first aid tent. Marvin sat leaning against the town hall clutching at his stomach.

‘I hope it hurt,’ I mouthed as he found my face through the crowd.

I hadn’t seen Marvin, my mongrel childhood mate, since he married the love of my life. Two years ago, the same day the army called, I ran from her rejection. For two long years, I cursed the girl’s indifference to my passion. I buried my pain in the gutters of Ostere and wished plague and pestilence on the happy couple.

Serious.

Over the top for sure and dead bitter, but it helped me sleep at nights. On bad days, with the alcohol flowing, I dreamed the sad, lonely dream of what if? And that scenario always turned out well for me. The wedding made the social pages and her father shook my hand. Marvin stood beside me holding the rings as my best man. There was a three-tiered cake, speeches and me and her danced to a waltz type tune.

A family crossed my path and I used the two children as cover. Marvin struggled to stand. His back remained stooped as he searched for my sorry arse. The smaller child dropped her floppy-eared rabbit in a murky puddle. I stepped forward and retrieved the toy, brushing the dirt from its ears. With a smile, I tucked the toy under her arm. She reached for my hand, but her mother, alarmed at my actions, yanked the leash and pulled her close.

I crept along Church Lane, my head turned from the town hall camera. A gaggle of coffee addicts sat at the tables outside Sylvia’s Coffee House. Tilly, the young lady I sought, stepped onto the sidewalk. She held the door for customers and the deep, rich aroma of coffee wafted into the square. She sat next to Sylvia and warmed her hands on her steaming brew. On special occasions, me and Tilly shared the odd bottle of wine. I broke bread at her dining table. Many times I dreamt of breaching her inner sanctum, climbing the rickety stairs and surviving the night, waking tousle-haired and hungry for the fry up in the morning.

Tilly liked me, but she harped on the prospect of her little Harry having a stable influence in his life. By stable, she meant a man with a job, a roof over his head, a car and maybe a dog. I struggled with her criteria, but my mate Blacky owned a dog and I walked it on occasions.

The large cup dwarfed her petite face. She pushed dark curls behind her ears and smiled at the festivities in the square. As her gaze approached my position I turned my back and blended into the crowd and cursed my cowardice. Maybe later, after a drink, I thought, when the square was less crowded.

A half-naked man juggling flaming sticks blocked my path. His child assistant shook a hat in my face. The scattering of gold shekels slithering and clinking in its bottom taunted me. I had no money and the little shite understood there was no jingle to my pockets. He continued to hound me, stamping his foot and pretending to cry when I patted his head.

No one cared about my protestations and I didn’t need the drama. I cut across the square, weaving between dawdling bodies, and collapsed on the seat between the undertakers and the Ostere Gazette. Above my head camera three, yes I’d numbered them all, craned forward into the square. Its lens panned the populace relaying images to the large screen. I pushed the black hood off my head and released the vodka from my pack. The cheap liquor calmed my nerves. With a cigarette burning, I kicked back against the cold brick wall, took a deep breath and calmed my heart.

Safe.

My life wasn’t too tragic, I reasoned. I’d dodged the past, leaving Marvin crippled in the dirt. I’d witnessed the future, spying young Tilly sitting by the Coffee House. And my present status found me with a pouch full of tobacco and a chilled bottle of vodka.

Marvin broke through a crowd of folk gazing at the large video screen. He tugged a large black carryall as if it were a reluctant child. His grubby trousers stuck to his ankles and his thin summer jacket froze to his body. Raw fingers clawed at his trouser pocket and mucous seeped from his nose.

I pulled the hood over my head, took a quick sip on the bottle and bunkered low in my seat. Walk on by, I pleaded.

Chapter Two

One big old Bag labelled with a T

MARVIN IGNORED MY THOUGHTS and fell onto the warped plank, kicking the bag beneath our seat. Chains rattled as it rested against the wall.

‘I need your help,’ he said.

He didn’t greet me, or apologize for crapping on my life, and not a word concerning my assault two minutes back. I’d have made my anger known and offered my assailant a right slap for the offense.

‘I’m in big trouble,’ he said. Clouds of vapor and spit followed each word. The voice sounded a pitch too high, a degree too desperate and a decibel too loud. I had no wish to spend time with the boy, but to witness his distress succored my spirit. I offered him the vodka.

‘What’s in the bag?’

‘Trouble,’ he said.

He pushed the vodka away and leaned forward, glancing left and right before focusing on my nose. I didn’t like him looking at my nose. I sniffed and twitched before offering it a good wipe with my coat sleeve.

‘With a big fucking T.’ His back straightened as he exhaled with a loud sigh.

I inched away. I didn’t need trouble, neither capital T nor little t, complicating my life. Marvin shifted in his seat. He scratched and fidgeted, waiting for me to show interest in his bag.

‘I wouldn’t ask,’ he said grabbing at my arm. ‘But I don’t know where to turn. I don’t know who to ask for help.’

He jumped from the seat and paced in front of me. On his second turn, he knocked against a vendor setting up his stall for the evening trade.

‘Sit down,’ I hissed.

Two lads in summer coats, shivering in the winter chill, caused eyebrows to rise. I didn’t want to cause alarm. Two lads supping on a generic brand of vodka caused voices to gossip. I couldn’t afford the gossip. I didn’t need my presence in the square becoming an issue as issues spiked the interest of the army. If the army became involved, guns, handcuffs, and bouts of torture and detention followed.

Detention could be bad. Detention could be forever as folk often went missing since the Man won government. For two years I’d fought such an outcome and I didn’t need Marvin popping his ugly head above the parapet.

‘Stuff’s going down,’ he said as he flopped beside me.

What did he mean? What stuff? The army—a rag, tag bunch of conscripts—ruled our streets. And the Man—desperate to stop the rioting and looting—had issued orders for the looters to be shot on sight. Or maybe he referred to the Projects—the urban guerrillas pissing on our lives by taking out the electric four nights running.

Was that the stuff he thought was going down?

‘What do you want?’ I said.

Marvin’s presence made me nervous. He'd stuffed a bag, contents undisclosed, beneath my seat and not explained its worth. Bags made us nervous in Ostere. It’s not that long ago the Christian Clan set off the first of the back pack bombings in a bus heading to Old London Town.

But I couldn’t see Marvin as a bomber. You needed to be political and passionate and revolutionary with a sparkle of zeal in your eyes. I’d known Marvin from wee and he didn’t do altercations, no way. He ran from a fight and pissed his pants when confronted.

My shekels sat on Linda having thrown the boy out of their family home and packed the bag to the gunnels with his crap life. And that suggested Linda might be lonely and be looking for company.

Could I forgive the girl for marrying the mongrel invading my space with his bag of trouble?

We sat in silence. The town square had transformed into an open-air restaurant. Street performers decorated the periphery. Part-cooked carcasses rotated on metal poles as herbs sprinkled on crisping skin. Musicians tuned instruments. Jugglers stretched and beggars searched for a profitable patch of turf.

A group of old boys huddled by the betting shack to my immediate left. They wanted to lay a bet and shelter from the chill wind, but the sign said closed. I’d never known Bob the Bookie to close.

‘Who are those blokes?’ Marvin pulled at his tie. ‘Why are they standing there?’ He pointed, jabbing his finger at the men.

I slapped his hand before the old boys took offense.

‘What’d you do that for?’ He rubbed at the red welt on the back of his hand.

‘Because you’re pissing me off and I’m not in the mood for answering every damn fool question you think up. I sit here because it’s safe and I keep my head down, nice and quiet, eh? Do you get it?’

He nodded, but I wasn’t sure he heard a word.

‘What is it with that wreck of a shop?’ he said. ‘It’s obviously closed, so why they keep trying to get in?’

I sighed and smiled at his hundredth question. ‘They’re gamblers,’ I said. ‘They want to lay a bet. Or play the machines. Or just get out of the cold.’

‘But it’s closed.’

‘What are the odds on that, eh?’

Marvin stood and paced and scratched. The scratching alarmed me. There were many diseases blighting the planet that medicine didn’t touch. People stepped around him, desperate not to touch his sorry, scabby arse. At least he’d stopped pointing.

‘So why don’t they move on?’ He stopped in front of me and stared at the men.

‘Move on where?’

I threw my hands in the air in exasperation. Street life offered few options unless you could magic shekels from dirt. His body flopped back on the seat, pushing his hands beneath his thighs for warmth.

‘What’s going on with today?’ A petulant whine over-emphasized each word. ‘Everything’s wrong. It’s all bloody wrong.’

The big screen projected images of Ostere’s missing children, the tearful pleas of their parents adding to the drama. I pulled my thin coat tight and crossed my leg away from Marvin’s neurotic behavior. My attention turned to a musical combo to our left and the growing crowd.

A man, walking with a limp, joined the huddle of men standing outside the betting shop. Lots of blokes suffered limps, walking with sticks or worse. The war on terror took the piss out of our able-bodied conscripts. The man swung his right leg with each step, his polished boots stepping heavy in the dirt. Light ginger hair, buzz-cut short, complimented a red beret. He wore an old, mid-length, black leather jacket and faded combat trousers. He accepted a cigarette from the group and pointed at the betting shop. The men shook their heads and huddled closer with a chimney of smoke puffing from the heart of their group.

Marvin pushed his hand through his thin brown hair before he turned back to the men by the shed. ‘Do you remember that time when you were in trouble at school?’

‘Which time?’

I struggled with school big time, so Marvin needed to narrow his point of reference.

His brow furrowed and he shook his head. ‘You were in trouble a lot, weren’t you?’

‘Compared to you,’ I said and shrugged. ‘I guess I was.’

I pulled the vodka from my bag and a large serrated knife clattered to the ground.

‘Jesus, Ben, that’s one serious knife.’

I pulled two switchblades from my right leg pocket, a rusty cutthroat and a hunting knife from my left. I smiled at Marvin as he leaned away from the threat. ‘Well-armed, eh?’

I shoved the serrated knife into the bottom of my backpack and the other knives into my calf pockets.

‘Against what?’

I showed him the half loaf of bread wrapped in brown paper and the pack of ham. ‘Folk are hungry down here and you live in the posh clouds of Lower Ostere. You’ve also spent time away fighting the good fight, haven’t you? Times aren’t good and if you haven’t got the coins, then you have to fight for the crumbs and if you don’t fight, you die.’

Marvin squirmed in his seat and wrapped his jacket tight around his body. The big screen went local, transmitting images of vendors prepping their food. Cameras focused on citizens walking the worn tracks between each stall. They nursed drinks as they waited for a feed.

‘You’ve changed,’ he said. ‘You’re all cynical and bitter.’

‘Piss off I’ve changed. I’ve spent the past two bloody years living rough. How’s your life been?’

‘Not good really. As I said—’

‘Not good? You married Linda, who was my girlfriend if I remember correctly, eh?’

‘You left, didn’t you?’ Marvin said. He reached forward to touch my jacket, stroking my lapel. He’d always been a tactile chap. ‘You abandoned Linda and you left your parents to be arrested just because you didn’t want to get conscripted. We didn’t think you were coming back.’

‘Piss off.’

My loud, sulky tone threatened to draw attention. I still didn’t know why Marvin sat with me. His pale face needed a shave and his hair, already thin on top, hadn’t seen a comb in an age. He appeared to have lost weight, but he’d always been a skinny runt.

He bumped me and smiled. When I didn’t respond he bumped me again, his smile accompanied by a nod. Marvin owned a good smile. I remembered struggling to stay mad at him when we were younger. He dropped this catch once, a high ball anyone’s granny could’ve caught. As I ran at him to give him a right thump he picked the ball up, gives me the big smile and says ‘oops.’

Oops. I mean, who says oops.

‘You still haven’t explained why you’re here,’ I said. ‘It’s been two years. You don’t turn up with a bag full of trouble and talk a load of shite without explaining yourself. You need to start talking or I’m gone. I don’t need to be here. I don’t need your big bag of fucking trouble in my life. So start talking or fuck off.’

‘My life’s gone to hell,’ he said, but again his attention turned to the blokes outside Bob the Bookies. He pulled at the sleeve of my coat until I followed his gaze. ‘Do you know that man with the limp?’

‘No, I don’t. They’re gamblers. Old boys.’

‘He keeps staring at me. That one with the beret isn’t an old boy. I think I know him.’

‘So go and say hello, eh?’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. There are bad, evil men after me and I think he’s one of them.’ Marvin turned to face me, touching me on the arm. ‘I need you to look after the bag.’

I leaned forward and peered at the large, black canvas bag beneath the seat. Chains and padlocks secured its contents. ‘What’s in it?’

He shot off the seat and crouched in front of me with his back to the square. ‘They’re here.’

‘Where?’

‘Behind me. I knew they’d follow me.’

‘Who?’

I turned to the crowd of folk gathered around Paella Pete’s counter. Two men in black coats and wide brimmed hats hogged the service.

‘I need you to get the bag to my mother.’

Both hands petted my knees and I wasn’t comfortable with the intimacy. ‘Why can’t you get the damn bag to your mother? I don’t like your mother and I know she doesn’t like me.’

‘They’re surrounding me,’ he whispered.

‘Who?’ I pushed his hands off my knees.

‘The Black Hats. Ben, I can’t talk now, but they’ve got my father. Jesus Ben, they took my bloody father and I fear he’s dead.’

‘Slow down.’ I held my hands in a placating gesture, hoping he might soften his tone. The two men in the black suits and hats had jumped the queue. They argued with all and sundry about rights and the price. Their tone bordered on aggressive and loud. ‘Why do you think your father’s dead?’

‘I don’t know for sure, but we haven’t heard from him since we got his finger in the post.’

I closed my mouth, aware it gaped. I no longer recognized my childhood mate. ‘You got a finger in the post.’ He nodded holding up his right index finger. ‘And it was your dad’s?’

He nodded again. ‘These men are bad and they threatened to chop him up into little pieces. They threatened me too, so please remember the cane. Remember that time in primary school when I helped you out when you were in trouble.’

I didn’t get what he meant. I had no memory of a cane or Marvin ever helping me out.

‘The cane Principal Fletcher used for punishment. I was there for you. Please, Ben. Do this for me.’

He grabbed my arm and squeezed hard, his eyes glistening. I smiled and nodded and he embraced me with a sob. I returned his embrace.

Without another word he stood and strode toward the crowd waiting for the snake charming. They parted as he approached and grumbled as he pushed a path out of the square. The lid of the large basket opened and the head of a nasty looking black snake appeared. It swayed left and right, its tongue tasting the air.

Chapter Three

Should not have lost the damn bag

I TURNED INTO BLACKY’S compound to find Pete the Nose, Billy Two Guns, and the dog sharing the tatty sofa outside the blacksmith’s shed. Come sundown with the black chill of night chasing our sorry arses, we gravitated toward Blacky’s sofa to keep the furnace burning, cook whatever produce we’d found, guard Blacky’s workshop, and pat the dog. Blacky’s furnace-heated sofa attracted an eclectic band of vagrants—draft dodgers mainly, but we met the odd criminal and the really odd patient searching for meds and peace from the hell inside their heads.

Our mission statement stated that no wino should ever park on Blacky’s sofa: Ever. The winos were right old thieves. They skulked in deep shadows by the overpass and warmed their thin wiry fingers over fires burning in battered oil drums. The winos supped on lighter fluid and choked on aerosol. They spent most nights waiting for us lot to fall asleep to attack with murder and theft on their minds.

The quadrangle lay hidden behind unoccupied buildings of businesses gone sour since the Great Recession took over our lives. A mountainous, craggy slagheap from a long-forgotten mining project dominated the blacksmith’s small wooden shed. Refuse and unwanted clutter littered the steep slopes, but it offered a panoramic view of Ostere if you could be arsed climbing to its peak.

The overpass lay to its fore, transporting vehicles around Ostere town center. A row of rusting council sheds lined the narrow rutted service road. A wild expanse of land, its boundary marked by a sagging wire fence, occupied the opposite side of the dirt road. A community of caftan-clad, vegan-munching folk I called the Ferals lived in the overgrown forested land. The front contained a mix match of weeds and wild herbs with a tomato bed nestled against the wall of the old brewery. Rumors suggested wild beasts roamed unfettered beyond the jungle of flora. We’d never ventured past the untidy allotments, but cries called on nights when the moon shone pale and full.

Pete jumped off the sofa with my approach and fetched a plastic chair. ‘How you doing, Ben,’ he said. ‘Look at this.’

He pulled his right arm out of his thick checked coat and shoved his sleeved bicep in my face. A load of Boy Scout badges lined his arm and shirt front. He kept pointing at the one held with a pin.

‘I’ve got the fire badge now,’ he said.

‘Well done. First Aid last week and now a fire badge. Next week we could be talking world peace perhaps?’

‘Is there a badge for World Peace? Is there Ben?’

‘Probably not, but there should be, eh?’

I picked Pete’s scout hat off the seat and sat next to Billy Two Guns. He wore earplugs with the sound of music streaming from his ears. I stretched my long legs to the red coals glowing in the furnace and rolled a cigarette. With a twig, I made fire from the coals and lit up, puffing and relaxing back on the tatty plastic sofa.

‘Scarlet Scum are out early tonight,’ I said.

Billy ignored me, but Pete brought his chair a little closer and nodded. ‘Bloody Scum,’ he said. He picked at the reddened sore on his nose. I looked away as the puss oozed from the sore. The hound, a tan muscular brute pulled on his chain and flopped his head in my lap.

‘The square’s filling up with army ready to flush them out of the High Street.’

‘What you doing in the square, Ben?’ Pete asked. He inspected a piece of scab. ‘You seeing that Tilly again, was you?’

‘No, I was just filling in time. I like the square, and I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years, which was weird.’

‘Does your friend know you’re wanted?’

‘I don’t think he was too bothered about me and the army. He wanted me to help him out and take a bag to his mum. A bloody monstrous thing it was.’

Billy pulled the right earpiece out and turned in his seat. ‘Where’s the bag?’

‘You know about the bag?’ I asked.

Billy shrugged and pulled at his ponytail before flicking it back over his shoulder. He offered his bald crown a quick massage and readjusted his glasses. ‘Heard something about a bag, but it might be a different bag.’

‘Well, the bag I’m talking about is stuck under the seat back at the square. I was thinking maybe Tommy could help me bring it back here, eh? Damn thing’s dead heavy.’

A small white bus pulled off the overpass and followed the rutted road leading to Blacky’s overgrown carpark. Pete stood off the chair and Billy eased upward, sitting his arse on the backrest of the sofa.

The bus parked next to Blacky’s workshop, the lights cut and the engine coughing before dying. The black dragon painted on the rear door opened upward and bodies jumped to the ground and waited for Jackie John to exit. They wore black combat clothing with their faces blacked. Black berets sat askew on their heads with the dragon emblem front and center.

Jackie glided toward the furnace slapping his thigh with a riding crop. I stood up, as sitting in Jackie’s presence bordered on rude and Jackie frowned on bad manners. He stopped by the furnace with his feet spread shoulder width and his back ramrod straight. He stood around five ten with long legs and longer arms and a torso starved of body fat.

‘Where’s bag, Street Boy?’ he asked. His accent was thick. Jackie was foreign, coming from a land south east of our wee island. His crew spread out behind him all of them searching the ground for the bag.

‘What bag?’ I said looking at Billy. I thought my question fair as Jackie had no right knowing about Marvin’s business.

‘You met Black Hat and he give you big black bag with lots a chains. I am right?’

How did he know? Earlier this afternoon I stood inside Smelly Alley checking out the square, watching for danger and inconsistencies before I poked a single toe onto the hallowed earth. I clocked the army getting frisky at the Duck easy, and not a single blue uniform walked that square. Apart from Christmas revelers, the area stood clean. Had I known of the Projects presence I’d never have entered the square. Trouble followed the Projects and I didn’t need trouble bothering me.

What I needed to do was up my game. I hadn’t seen Marvin until he grabbed my arm. My obsession with Tilly was making me vulnerable and that could get me in trouble.

‘I didn’t meet with any Black Hats or anyone wearing a Black Hat, so no, you’ve got that wrong.’

Jackie slapped the crop against his leg and took a step toward me. His crew followed with three of his men taking position behind the sofa. Billy turned so he