Zodiac's toy by John Jones (best free ereader .TXT) 📖

if you apologise to Wayne".

"Aww...Caroline," She pointed to the door. "Out, and I hope it rains". Ray sighed with exasperation.

"Fine," he muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said fine. I'll go the cafe tomorrow and apologise to Wayne". Caroline shook her head.

"No you won't. You'll apologise now...Wayne!" she called.

At the top of the stairs, a sheepish looking Wayne appeared in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, hovering there like he didn't know whether to go back in the room or down the stairs.

"Wayne, Ray has got something to say".

"It's okay, I heard," he said, disappearing.

"Wayne! get down here now". He appeared again and made his way down the stairs. He tried to, but could not make eye-contact with Ray, and vice-versa.

"I'm sorry," Ray muttered.

"For what?" Caroline asked.

"Sorry for asking my mate to warn you off her".

"We're still getting married," said Wayne. Ray nodded, and offered his hand for him to shake. Wayne stared at it for a few moments, then reluctantly shook it.

"Promise you won't send Lee around again," said Caroline. Ray nodded emphatically.

"I promise, but about Sandie's number..."

"No chance, now you can use the sofa but I want you gone the second you wake up. I'm still annoyed with you". She and Wayne went back upstairs. Ray went into the living room and collapsed on the sofa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

When Caroline awoke the following morning to find an absent Wayne, she dressed quickly and went downstairs to find an absent Ray.

She found them both in the kitchen, their backs to her, engrossed over a sizzling cooker.

"...then you can season it with black pepper," said Wayne. She smiled slightly, and Wayne turned and saw Caroline standing there.

"Morning love, breakfast?"

They all sat at the small kitchen table, Caroline and Wayne dressed and ready for work because Wayne was being dropped off at the cafe, so they had a quick bite to eat with green teas, and despite a vegan breakfast for Ray, he found it tasty.

He nodded his approval at the food.

"Was nice that," he said.

"We need to go," said Caroline, moving to leave, as did Wayne, and she pointed an annoyed finger at Ray.

"I'm still angry with you. You can't hide here from Lee. You've got to face him at some point, so I'd rather you weren't here when I get back, okay?" Ray reluctantly nodded, looking away.

The front door clicked shut and he was alone in the silence.

Sandie's number, he thought. Need to find it. He drank the last of his tea and proceeded to search everywhere, trying his best to not look as though anything had been touched, like a burglar with a conscience, trying to put things neatly back, and he spent a good half hour searching, fear slowly burning within him the more he couldn't find it.

He didn't want to admit it, but he knew the truth. Lee terrified him, and walking on eggshells around him was something he hated. Progressively, over the years Lee had become more and more 'hardened' to the criminal way of life, due to experience and a lack of desire to be anything else. He had never shown any inclination to go straight, and despite Ray's dipping his toe in the criminal world every now and then, such as smuggling out cigarettes and alcohol from the supermarket where he worked, and selling counterfeit clothing when Shane obtained ‘knock-offs’ that had ‘fallen off a lorry’ he was certainly no jailbird like Lee, and the more entwined in criminal activity Lee became, the more Ray knew he would be dragged along, because saying no to him was never usually a good idea. He was very good at persuasion.

Where am I going though? Ray asked himself. Am I just going to spend the rest of my life living that way? He did kind of like Lee though, in a roundabout way, but not as much as he used to.

Rifling through the bedroom drawers, he found no sign of the number, and found himself in the hallway, wondering what on earth he would say to Lee, like the school-boy that has to tell the teacher he hadn't done his homework.

He saw on a tall occasional table beneath a mirror the cordless answer machine telephone, and pressed a few buttons. Recent calls. He scrolled back a few days. Sandie.

There it was. He went about finding a piece of paper and a pen and with the nib poised, he wrote all of the number except for the last digit. He remembered what Caroline had said: 'I couldn't do that to her', and the fact she has a boy-friend, but he knew he had to take something back to Lee, so with trepidation, wrote a different last number and wrote 'Sandie' next to it. He hoped Lee would never ring it at all.

It was his week-end in work and he didn't start until eleven, so sat watching television until it was time to leave, feet on the coffee-table eating a packet of Caroline's onion-ring crisps.

 

So an hour later, he was in the supermarket car-park in his high-vis jacket, pushing a few trolleys back to where they belonged. Then he went around picking up litter, and in aisle three somebody had spilled a carton of strawberry milk and he had to put up a yellow 'caution' sign next to the spillage and go and get the cleaning equipment.

He didn't really hate the job. It was work. It was a few extra pounds in his pocket, and he just got on with it. Other employees hardly spoke to him much. There were a couple of people he spoke more than a few sentences to, and others who were on nodding terms, but other than that he was simply the type of employee who only did it for the money, nothing else, who held no loyalty to the company, didn't care about rising through the ranks, and would drop it in a heartbeat if something better came along.

The store was busy as it usually was and he pushed the cleaning trolley towards the spillage and stopped next to it. He was about to grab the mop when he noticed that further along, a little girl was staring at him. She was with what was probably her grandmother who was mulling over the margarines, oblivious.

The girl slowly walked towards him and stopped about eight feet away. The grandmother noticed and came across.

"Chantelle, I've told you never to..." but Chantelle pointed at Ray and said:

"Grandma, Aries thinks that man is a cunt". Grandma audibly breathed in. A few other customers looked in the girls direction.

"Chantelle! where did you hear such language?" She looked at Ray.

"Sorry," she said, "I'm really sorry". She grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled her away. Ray stood there for a few moments.

I don't believe in astrology, he thought, and went back to work.

 

Chapter 14

 

He stood in the car-park of the high-rise flats with his heavy bag of whisky, vodka and cigarettes he always managed to steal from work, looking up at the windows, surprised with himself how nervous he was, but he knew he had to go in.

One of the other residents who he had only ever seen in passing, a man who looked ten years younger than him was talking on a mobile phone as he left the main entrance and passed near Ray.

“...so go and ask him. Ask him if he’ll give us a lift back as well, and tell him that my star-sign is Taurus. I’m a Taurus”. Ray just looked at him as he walked past, then the man seemed confused.

“...don’t know what I said that for. Anyway, go and ask…”

He slowly walked up the stairs, and found Lee and Victor sitting together, looking bored, watching television in Lee's flat.

"There he is," Lee said, "where have you been?"

"I stayed at Caroline's. Got that number you wanted". He held out the piece of paper to Lee.

"I was only messing with you, you know. I didn't think you would actually get it. See, told you I would get you back in her good books. If you listen to old Uncle fucking Lee you'll do alright. Tell you what...fuck this hanging around the flats, let's all go the pub. I'll pay. Vic, go and get Shane".

With that, the four of them left the flats, and headed along the roads to their local, 'The Green Castle'.

When they entered, several of Lee's old friends and acquaintances were there, and cheered when he walked in.

'Welcome back' they said slapping him on the shoulder and shaking his hand, offering to buy him drinks. Lee accepted. Some of them rang up a few of their other friends in the neighbourhood.

'Guess who's back?'

So for that night, the Green Castle became the hub of an unofficial 'Welcome home' party, and the other regulars who had no idea who he was, or did know who he was and didn't like him, slinked away as more people, friends of friends turned up, people who carried around with them an aura of negativity, an atmosphere building in the pub towards that of potential violence. It simply needed one spark. However, that night, that spark was not lit. There were a few arguments, a couple of 'squaring-ups', but no blood spilled. The staff did not enforce the 'No smoking' ban as the place became a pall of smoke, and glasses got smashed, and laughter punctuated the place throughout the night. Some people who were coming to the pub, stood on the threshold, took one look inside, then turned and left.

Then as the clock ticked past midnight, and the staff were even afraid to call last orders, they were quietly relieved when Lee himself stood up and shouted:

"Come on everyone, all back to mine". Most of them left. Some left and went away, but about twenty-five people all headed back to the high-rise. Some went via the off-licence and brought with them all kinds of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.

On the ceilings of all the flats, there was at least one spider, maybe hiding in a corner, but that night they were witness to laughter, arguments, the pall of smokes from different types of cigarettes, cigars, joints, the music of drum 'n’ bass. Witness to genuine fights, glasses being smashed, people falling over, the crushing of empty cans, beer being spilled and vibrations from the hi-fi and heavy footfalls.

Poor spiders got no peace that night.

When Lee woke the following morning, face down on Shane's sofa, he was surprisingly sober. Although he indulged in all the behaviour, perhaps he had not as much as some of the other people, or maybe he was just hardened to it. In days gone by when he had had a lot to drink, inebriation took a while to take over. He was slightly hungover, and a dull ache inside his head told him he wasn't a hundred percent.

He found the place looking like it had been the epicentre of a raucous party, because it basically was. Empty bottles of whisky, vodka, cider and lager cans with white powder and cigarette filters strewn around, and there were people asleep. Someone lay on his back in front of the television as though they'd been shot. Someone was asleep on a wooden kitchen table chair. He wandered out into the corridor and found a man lying down, asleep by Victor's flat.

He found somebody asleep in his own flat in the arm-chair. He slapped him in the face.

"Oi, wake up and fuck off". The man murmured and stirred.

"Go on, out!" Lee said, hooking a thumb to the door, and he did the same in all the other flats, slapping people awake.

"Time to fuck off", and so around ten minutes later, in the corridor people moaned and staggered around.

Lee didn't recognise half of them, but he could tell some would be the type to hang around where they could feed their addictions.

Crack-heads, he thought. those who usually looked double their real age, who if they weren't given their marching orders would hang around doing nothing but smoking and drinking. Those who were mostly drunk or