The Book

“What’s that? Is that one of those Weiner Schnitzels?” Ward gave the photo a disgusted look and sat back in his seat. “Is it broken?”

“Weiner… what?” Baz asked too confused to laugh. “It’s a dachshund, you idiot. You know, a sausage dog, due to the fact it looks like a sausage.”

“Why’s it look like that?”

“Years of inbreeding,” Baz said and then put his phone away. They were sitting in his car out on the snow-lined street, waiting.

“So why do you want to buy it then, won’t it just get sick?”

“It’s not for me, it’s her birthday present.” Baz reached behind his seat and felt for the bag’s zip. “If I had my way, I’d get the ugliest mutt from the shelter. The longer on death row the better.”

“So let her buy it herself. I don’t see why we have to cut the day short just so you can go buy a dog you don’t want.”

“Ward, that’s not how birthdays work.” Baz reached back again and touched the zip. He wondered if it would be better stashed under his seat or hidden in the boot. If they got stopped it was in plain sight.

“Why do you keep checking it, it hasn’t gone anywhere?”

“You do realise what will happen if we lose that, right?” Baz made sure Ward was listening to him when he spoke. “When we took the book, we accepted responsibility for what it represented. We lose it, we’re on the hook for the entire amount.”

“All of it?” Ward asked.

The way he reacted, as if it were news to him gave Baz pause to reconsider taking the lad on. He could have let him go but out of loyalty to Frank, he had kept Ward on the payroll.

“All of it. When I get out you stay in here with it and lock the doors. No walking off to get ice cream or whatever it is you used to do.”

“That was one time —”

“I don’t care, Frank might have let you get away with it but not me. I need you sharp and focused.”

“I am, I swear.” Ward sat up straight in his seat and did his best impression of a diligent employee. “You didn’t have to keep me on. I know some people have tried to say that I had something to do with Frank getting locked up but I want you to hear it from me that I had nothing to do with that night. I wasn’t even in town when it happened.”

“Shut up, Ward,” Baz said and did his coat up. He took the keys out of the ignition and slipped them in his pocket.

“You know it —”

“Ward, keep talking and I’ll change my mind.” Baz closed his eyes and did his best to zone the lad out. He hoped the chattiness was just nervous energy and not a sign of things to come. He didn’t want a mute as a partner, but he did need someone that was going to respect his process.

He focused on the inner voice, not his own but the one he carried with him, the one that sounded like her. She was in there now, her long fingernails dug into his brain, holding on but that was how he liked it. He couldn’t shake her off even if he tried. Her words carried through to him even when she wasn’t with him, and he could hear her telling him to keep his eye on the prize. The book was an opportunity for a better life, he just had to take it.

Baz took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out through the mouth. She had brought order to his life, giving him a purpose and sharing her plan for the future with him. He would do anything to see it happen, to see her happy.

“What are you doing?”

“Breathing.” Baz kept his eyes closed, hoping the lad would shut up.

“Yeah, but you’re doing it weird.”

“It’s a calming technique.” Baz caught the strange look the younger man was giving him out of the corner of his eye. “When you knock on a door you can’t be taking any of your own shit in with you, you know? If you’re angry you might snap or if you’re thinking about your sick grandmother, you might be too lenient. You’ve got to be focused because these fools will take advantage of you. They can smell weakness, they feed on it.”

Ward stared at him. “Frank just knocked and told them to pay up. No money, broken nose.”

“Right, but he’s just been locked up for bashing a man’s skull in. I am not a psychopath; I am a businessman. His way was the old way.”

“We always handed in a full bag. Couldn’t have been that bad at it,” Ward grumbled as he stared out of the window. The pavement was quiet, the ice keeping people at home.

“I’m not getting locked up. Besides, you’re nothing like Frank, no one is. They broke the mould when they made him.”

“I’m tough enough.” The youth bristled and shifted in his seat. “Give me the number and I’ll go up.”

“You’ll get your chance but not with this guy.” Baz stared up at the fourth floor, trying to guess which side of the building the flat was on. “He doesn’t want to pay and I’m going to have to convince him otherwise.”

“How do you know?”

Baz pulled a red exercise book from out of an inner pocket and flicked through the pages. He found what he was looking for and handed it to Ward. “Look at the pattern of payments. Frank was letting him slide for months.”

Ward ran a finger down the entries, his lips moving silently as he kept the tally. “No way, he’s barely paid any interest all year. Is it a friend of his?”

“You tell me. You’ve been driving around with Frank for the past few years.”

“We didn’t come here,” Ward said handing the book back. “Frank had some clients that he dealt with personally. The landlord at the George, people like that. This must have been one of them. But Frank said he made everyone pay, no exceptions.”

“Whatever arrangement he may have had with Frank ended when the judge handed down the sentence.” Baz opened the door to a blast of cold air. “Stay here.”

He slammed the door shut before Ward could say anything and strode to the apartment block’s front door. The ice crunched beneath his boots and the cold worked its way in despite his layers. The door was unlocked but the lift was out of order, and he was forced to take the stairs to the fourth floor. While he climbed, he imagined the look on her face when he brought the puppy home. She was expecting it, but the excitement had been building ever since they put the deposit down. It would just be the three of them, a little family. He couldn’t wait to get home.

He knocked on the door and stood to the side, ready to jam his foot in the gap if they tried to slam it on him. There was a strong smell of stale smoke and worse lingering outside the flat. A fresh coat of red paint couldn’t hide the scratches on the door, letters half visible, the letterbox screwed shut. Baz got a bad feeling and stepped back to get a look at the neighbour’s doors, clean and unmarked.

The door opened and Baz was about to stick his foot in the gap when he was confronted with a grizzled face straight out of his nightmares. There was a moment of stunned silence on either side and then the door pulled back and an old man filled the gap. Grey stubble clung to his hollow cheeks and the smell of cheap whisky rolled off him a wave that made Baz want to wretch.

“What are you doing here?” the old man said hitching up his trousers. He looked Baz over from head to toe and a smile creased his cracked face.

“No,” Baz said stepping back and shaking his head. “It can’t be you.”

“Come in, we can have a drink. I’ve waited so long for you to come and find me. You look good, Son.”

“I didn’t come here because of you.”

“You’re standing right in front of me, aren’t you. I’m not that drunk.” The old man rubbed his nose and coughed into his hand. A sickly sound that made Baz’s lip curl. “How are you, how’s your —”

“No, you don’t get to ask that. You don’t get to ask me anything.”

“Why? It’s been so long, can’t we just, you know, get over it?”

“Shut the door.” Baz tensed as a wave of anger long held at bay rose within him. The old man took a step closer, a look of pleading on his sorrowful face. “Close the fucking door,” Baz said in a low and dangerous voice.

“Son.”

Baz shoved his father in the chest and pulled the door closed. He held the latch while a hand fumbled on the inside. He could hear him wheezing, a sound that made him want to smash his face in. Every part of him wanted to kick the door open and hurt his father, make him cry as he had made —

“No, god damn it.” Baz punched the door and then stormed off, all but running to the stairwell. He skipped down them two at a time and burst out of the front door and onto the street.

Ward looked up at his approach and opened his door to get out, but Baz waved him back in. He ran out into the road without looking and got in the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut.

“Are you alright? What happened?” Ward asked turning in his seat to look out the rear window.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” Baz took a deep breath but let it out with a shake of his head.

“Did he pay up?” Ward asked.

“Open the glove box,” Baz said and started the engine while Ward did as he was told. “There’s an envelope at the back, take it out.”

“Why’ve you got so much cash in the glove box?” Ward pulled a wad of notes out of the envelope and flicked through them, counting as he did so. “There’s got to be two grand here.

“Make a note in the book and stick it in the bag.” Baz tossed the red notebook into Ward’s lap without looking.

Ward held the cash and peered up at the block of flats.

“Ward,” Baz snapped. “Just do it.”

“Alright,” Ward said and opened the book. He grabbed a pen from the dashboard. “The old man wouldn’t do this.”

“Well, we just established that he did, so shut up and do your job.”

“Who was it up there?”

“Someone I thought was dead,” Baz said his voice too soft for Ward to hear over the sound of the engine. “What’s the next address?”

“I thought you wanted to go get this dog of yours?”

Baz pulled away without checking his mirrors and took the first turning, eager to leave his past behind.