The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas Read online

  ‘Ah dunno … mibbe he’s still sufferin’ some form ae trauma efter the Church riot, y’know?’ said Washer. ‘His ma’s up tae a hundred wi’ it aw.’

  ‘Aye. Fuckin’ mental night, that yin, wi’ aw they bastart gypos turnin’ up. Ye got tae the bottom ae it aw yet?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Washer. ‘Just aboot joined up aw the dots. That stupid fat cunt Duncan ordered a hit oan the two DJs but his arsehole ae a sidekick … the yin that cannae even fuckin’ speak right … he gets the message wrang, an’ Dale … ach fuck it, ah mean Max, and his group got targeted.’ Gerry nodded sagely, as if this was an everyday fuck-up that regularly befell stuttering sidekicks.

  ‘So who we efter, then?’ said Gerry.

  ‘Naebody. Ah want this yin left for a while.’ Gerry Ghee was surprised at Washer Wishart’s calm. Of all the local East Ayrshire hoods, Washer Wishart was known for his mature and sound judgement in the face of challenge, but still, his only son – on whom he had always previously doted – had nearly been rubbed out. Gerry Ghee couldn’t understand his boss’s quiet composure … unless a bigger plan was emerging. Gerry acknowledged the complexity of the situation that now involved three rival gangster gangs. There had been peace in the valleys of East Ayrshire since the McLartys had been forcibly evacuated years ago, back to the Glasgow swamp from whence they’d emerged.

  The Quinns had enjoyed the other families’ gratitude for that, but the resultant détente was now being threatened because one had apparently paid another to ambush a third. The initial summit meeting, held to identify cause and ensure calm, had been inconclusive. Someone was holding back, and although reparations had been agreed, Washer separately suspected that the real reason for his boy’s battering was being covered up. Something about it didn’t feel right to Washer Wishart. He’d had no reason to suspect anyone moving into his territory in Crosshouse. Everyone – even Ayrshire kingpin Mickey ‘Doc’ Martin – looked down on Crosshouse. It was regularly joked that even the Twix chocolate bars in Crosshouse had webbed fingers due to inbreeding.

  So Washer instinctively knew something didn’t fit. Head polis honcho, Don McAllister had been on the telephone the day after the gig. He had urged Washer to let the dust settle, and not to declare war on the Quinns. His sharp sense for human behaviour suggested that this was a misunderstanding … and that, furthermore, the damage inflicted on Dale would have been opportunistic, and not premeditated. Washer saw some sense in this viewpoint and acceded. But somebody was answerable for his son, and with the other family heads vigorously maintaining innocence, Washer would need to dig around a bit. Don McAllister accepted this and provided the consequences remained confined to the community’s unseen underbelly, he’d turn a blind one. Washer needed to find out more though. And that’s where Flat-pack Frankie came in.

  Frank’s nickname was the subject of some dispute. He had performed strong-arm duties for his close friend since the early 70s, when the power and reach of Washer Wishart really accelerated. It was believed that Frank Fusi had made two young corner boys disappear by killing them and packaging their dissected body parts in wooden boxes that were part of an entrepreneurial business dream based on ready-to-assemble furniture. He hadn’t, of course, although they had been persuaded to move on. The citizens of Ayrshire couldn’t get their heads around how money could be made from a joinery business that required them to build their own cabinets, but Frank Fusi was convinced he was onto something with the flat-packing idea. The name stuck, and pub legend did the rest.

  Keep ootae Frankie Fusi’s way, or ye’ll get fuckin’ flat-packed.

  Steven Dent and the Ferguson brothers needed to take note.

  8

  24th July 1982

  3.05 pm

  The green had gone. His ginger hair was now dyed a more vibrant orange. He seemed to be working his way through the colours of the Rowntree’s Fruit Pastille spectrum. He wore badly applied black eyeliner. He wore black leather trousers. He wore a white shirt with a large expressive picture of Sly Stone’s face covering its front. He wore the black 12-high DM boots. He wore the confidence born of knowing Washer Wishart’s reputation protected him from any adverse reactions. Max Mojo strode down John Finnie Street with a sense of purpose that no one who had seen him during the previous six weeks would’ve considered he still possessed. Though they might have been concerned that he was possessed, such was the increasing regularity with which he seemed to be in conversation with himself. Initially, on coming out of hospital, he had been highly irritable; the dark voice in his head never letting up, always driving and droning on, but as Max – and the Lithium compounds he was taking – had become more accustomed to it, he began to respond differently to the voice and its insistent promptings.

  ‘Ye got the cards?’

  ‘Aye. Ah’ve got them here. Vocalist. Guitarist. Moe Tucker-type stand-up drummer. Bass, but no’ a bass-tard.’

  ‘Influences? Ah fuckin’ telt ye tae note the influences, ya prick. Fuck sake … dae ah huv tae dae everythin’ fae in here?’

  ‘Naw. Gie’s peace, eh. Ah hudnae finished.’ An old woman standing at the lights waiting to cross regarded Max and his outer monologue in conversation.

  ‘Ye aw’right, son?’ she asked, with a smile.

  Fuck off, grandma. If we wanted your opinion, we’d tell ye it!’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Max, immediately. The difference in tone persuaded the old woman that he was indeed, on something. One to be studiously avoided. She crossed. Max Mojo kept on, another Kilmarnock striding man. He was headed for his destiny … via English Dave and the RGM Music shop, a local Mecca for fledgling bands.

  3.14 pm

  At precisely the same time, Flat-pack Frankie Fusi was opening the boot of his rusting Vauxhall estate car. He had driven south down the A76 to New Cumnock with the window wound down, and Radio 1 blaring from the single dashboard speaker.

  It was a stiflingly hot day, another in a long line of them, yet Frankie still wore a pin-striped mohair suit. He was conducting business for his friend Washer Wishart. That business was presently lying petrified in the extended folded-down boot space of his car, under tarpaulin. It had been pretty easy to secure an independent account of the events that transpired on the night Washer’s son had been felled. Bobby Cassidy, Heatwave Disco’s absent chief, referred him quickly to his sidekick, Joey Miller. He’d hastily passed on the contact details of Heatwave’s minder for that evening, Malky MacKay. Malky had neither allegiances nor agenda so his testimony that – an initial lobbed bottle from the crowd apart – the subsequent damage to the Vespa’s frontman had been solely down to those sharing the stage was enough for Frankie Fusi.

  Earlier that morning, his ‘men’ had rounded up the three ex-Vespas. Now, five hours later, they were stripped, topped and tailed, hooded and their arms were bound behind their backs with Gaffa tape. Oh, and as might be expected by such a scenario, all three of them were absolutely shiting themselves.

  3.20 pm

  Grant Dale was genuinely excited. He’d never spent as much money on anything as substantial as this before. Not by a long distance. Since his mother had made it clear that the money she had secured for him was his to do as he wished, buying an electric guitar had gone straight to the top of his list. Grant hadn’t been academically clever. He had always been interested in English, especially poetry, but he had never tested that interest in exam conditions. He’d left school at sixteen with two O Levels; two more than any other male in his extended family had ever achieved. They were low grades, and in Art and Music. No’ real subjects like widwork, according to his unimpressed father. It was yet another example of the growing rift between Hobnail and Senga. One disappointed, the other exalted, by the same outcome.

  But Grant had something of an aptitude for music, and guitar in particular. He had initially been ambivalent. All of his early guitar lessons seemed to involve learning the chords to dull Eric Clapton songs, rather than the more limited – but far more exciting – range
offered by bands like The Clash or The Ramones. However, he surprised himself by sticking with it, and now, with the allocation of the Fatman’s money from his mum, he was off to buy a guitar – a shiny black Rickenbacker, just like the one Paul Weller sometimes played.

  3.53 pm

  ‘Aw’right, Inkstain?’ Frankie Fusi walked towards the parked Harley Davidson, where the dismounted Ernie Ingram extended an illustrated arm. Frankie shook the hand that was at the end of it. Ernie simultaneously hitched up his leather trousers with his free hand.

  ‘Howdy, Franko. What’s the story?’ Ernie ‘Inkstain’ Ingram was a regular collaborator of Washer Wishart. When the Crosshouse Kingpin wanted a message sent, he usually did it in indelible ink inserted artistically into the recipient’s dermis. Ernie was the Galston-based tattooist with no conscience. He’d mark anybody – and with anything – for the right money. He had a relatively normal clientele of young servicemen looking to express their new ‘brotherhood’, or Masonic Lodge members affirming their allegiances, or football fans, or band groupies, or daft wee lassies in the first flush of love. But Ernie also had a lucrative sideline. He did call-outs, mainly for stag nights or drunken 18th birthday parties. And – as was the case on this beautiful summer’s afternoon – he responded to shortnotice calls from Washer Wishart.

  ‘Where are they, boss?’ asked Ernie.

  ‘In the shed, on the hooks … jist waitin’ for the pen,’ said Frankie.

  ‘The message?’ said Ernie.

  ‘We’ll have three of yer ‘specials’ from the future bender menu,’ said Frankie.

  ‘Right, ye are, Franko. Tell Washer ah’m askin’ efter his boy.’

  ‘Will do, compadre.’ Frankie Fusi shook Ernie ‘Inkstain’ Ingram’s muscular hand again. As he did so, he noticed a small Tweety Pie tattoo on the rocker’s thumb. Cute, thought Frankie Fusi.

  ‘I’ll be a coupla hours,’ said Ernie.

  ‘Aye, nae worries. Ah’ve strapped them up so there shouldnae be any strugglin’. Once yer done, jist cut them doon an’ take the straps aff their feet. The cunts can walk back tae Killie, lettin’ everybody know they take it up the arse. Big capital letters, mind. Bigger than yer usual.’

  ‘Aye. It’ll be noticeable.’ Ernie grinned. Frankie laughed and walked slowly back to his car.

  He hadn’t even reached the vehicle before the muffled screams of the barn’s inhabitants increased in volume. It sounded like a tortuous harmony of slowed-down Kate Bush vocals recorded backwards. The petrified source of those sounds had caught sight of Ernie Ingram strolling in with his wee generator and a suitcase full of pigment.

  4.09 pm

  English Dave was actually English, and his name was David English. He was a local Kilmarnock celebrity. His shop – RGM Music – had been a fixture in Nelson Street for longer than anyone could remember. Locals joked that English Dave had sold the first set of bagpipes in history. That he’d been there at the crossroads as Robert Johnson bartered for his soul with the devil using an acoustic guitar bought from Dave. That Keith Moon had battered the fuck out of a set of RGM Music drums at Woodstock. That Paul’s Hofner Bass was originally loaned to the Beatle by English Dave himself.

  Dave did tell great stories and nobody particularly cared if they were true or not. His shop was a great place to be for kids of all ages – kids who were interested in the sounds instruments made. There was always someone hammering away on a Fender as if they were Hendrix, or blowing one of the saxophones at the rear like they were the soloist on ‘Baker Street’.

  When the newly named Max Mojo entered the shop, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by The Clash was blaring. English Dave was startled by the young man’s transformation, but then appeared genuinely happy to see him. Dave had obviously heard about the Henderson Church fiasco. The synthesiser that the band was using that night was borrowed from RGM. Sale or return. Sale was clearly the only option now, since fire had reduced it to a pile of ash. English Dave was hoping the young man was here now to settle. Sadly, he was mistaken.

  ‘Dave,’ said Max Mojo, nodding.

  ‘So, ah’ve heard that’s it’s not Dale anymore. Max something … that right?’

  ‘Aye. Mojo … Max Mojo.’ The old man smiled, indulgently, as if listening to a toddler playing at being a Batman villain. ‘You okay, son?’ asked English Dave.

  ‘Aye … look, fuck that aul’ yin, ah’m pinnin’ these cards up in the windae, right?’

  ‘What did you say?’ English Dave was taken aback. ‘What’s happening with your eye there?’

  ‘Ach, sorry. It’s nothin’ Dave. Ah’m just a bit irritable. The headaches an’ lack ae sleep an’ that, y’know?’ Max had covered his twitching eye with his hand.

  ‘So, cards you were saying? You starting up the band again?’ said English Dave.

  ‘Fucks it got tae dae wi’ you, ya aul’ duffer?’

  ‘Look, son. Take that tone with me again an’ you can get out my shop. You owe me money for that synth in case you’ve forgotten.’ English Dave was flustered. Max Mojo, the body, was embarrassed. The Voice inside its head wasn’t. His face had gone bright red. Four other people in the shop, previously minding their own business, were all now staring at him.

  ‘Dave … ah’m really, really sorry,’ said Max. He turned away. Dave heard him whispering. It wasn’t easy to hear clearly but the teenager appeared to be arguing with himself. ‘…jist you fuckin’ button it just now, ya cunt!’ said Max, more audibly. He turned round to face a confused English Dave. ‘Right, sorry Dave, where wur we?’

  ‘No idea, son,’ Dave admitted.

  ‘Ah’ll square ye up fur the synth, man. Ye ken ma da’s good for it. Ah’m just lookin’ tae put a new band th’gither. Could ah put up the cards and a poster?’ Max asked, as politely as his tormented brain would allow him. ‘An’ if ye could point any talent in the ma direction, that’d be magic … ya prick! … AAARRGH.’ Thankfully, Dave seemed to have misheard the last insult.

  ‘Sure pal. You got a name yet?’

  ‘Naw. Got a few ideas … wanker…’ he coughed loudly. Again, he seemed to have gotten away with it. ‘Ah’m managin’, no’ playin’.’

  English Dave looked at the poster and smiled:

  NEW BAND EMERGES FROM THE ASHES OF LEGENDARY BAND…

  IF YOU’RE FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF IGGY, THE PASSION OF THE CLASH, THE GROOVE OF THE DELFONICS & THE CLOUD’NT-GIVE-A-FUCK ATTITUDE OF LYDON … PHONE ME. I CAN’T SAY I’LL DEFINITELY PHONE YOU BACK … BUT … YOU NEVER FUCKING KNOW!

  SIMGER – GUITARIST – BASS (BUT NOT A BASS-TARD!) – DRUMS

  CALL MAX MOJO. TEL: 36890

  Given the earlier outbursts, English Dave thought the better of pointing out the spelling mistakes and instead, simply taped it to the shop window behind him. The cards went into polythene sleeve pockets that held adverts for various secondhand guitar parts, amplifiers, speakers, cymbals, and one – Max Mojo noticed – for the sale of a full mobile disco unit – the Heatwave Disco unit.

  ‘So,’ said English Dave, holding in the mirth. ‘Max Mojo, is it?’

  ‘Ah needed a new start. New name. Somethin’ the London Labels wid pick up oan, like.’

  ‘Well, it is different,’ said Dave.

  From the back of the shop, an almighty drum racket shook the walls of the small, narrow space.

  ‘Maggie! Knock that off, eh?’ shouted Dave. Everyone in the shop turned to face the blur of bleached blonde hair that contrasted with ebony skin. The girl looked up contemptuously. Max observed that she was stunningly beautiful. And, moreover, she could obviously play those drums. She wasn’t standing up, and she made Moe Tucker look like the Elephant Man, but that apart, he figured he might just have found his drummer. He went over to speak to her, hoping the Voice would shut the fuck up for at least the next ten minutes.

  ‘How much is the Rickenbacker, man?’ English Dave’s attention was drawn back by the tall, handsome, pale-skinned youth standing in front of him.

  ‘S
ix hundred, son,’ he said casually. He anticipated that would end the conversation. It was by far the most expensive one that RGM Music had in stock.

  ‘Aw’right, mate,’ said Grant Dale. ‘Cash dae ye?’ English Dave’s eyebrows arched. What a fucking bizarre half an hour, he thought. Grant Dale brought the cash out in fifties. And there was clearly far more in his wallet than what he had just laid down on the counter. Max Mojo also caught the moment and instinctively glided back over towards the transaction.

  ‘Fuckin’ brilliant song this, eh?’ he said. Although Max appeared to be speaking to no one in particular, his comments were very specifically addressed to Grant, who was now beside him.

  ‘Eh … aye. Orange Juice, intit?’ said Grant. He was only vaguely aware of the identity of the person tapping his feet and drumming nervous fingers on the counter. He knew he was connected to an Ayrshire big man, but he couldn’t think which one.

  ‘Ah-ah … I can’t help myself. Fuck me, that’s the story ae ma life, right noo,’ said Max, fishing.

  ‘That right?’ said Grant, trying to avoid the bait.

  ‘Used tae be in a band, me.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Aye. Headed for a wee bit ae stardom tae.’ There was a pause. Max took a different tact. ‘Can ye play that?’ Grant turned round and held up the new guitar.