I Love My Smith and Wesson by David Bowker Page B

Bryan smiled expansively to demonstrate the correct reponse to a joke.
    â€œForget about Dye. He’s already being taken care of. It’s this Larry Crème guy we need to be talking to.”
    â€œWhat about?”
    â€œAbout whether he wants to do business with us or spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.” Chef picked up the manuscript and leafed through it idly. “What’s the script about?”
    Bryan looked startled. “How the fuck should I know?”
    Chef flung it across the table. “Read it.”
    â€œThat’s easy for you to say. This thing’s seventy fucking pages long.”
    â€œI take it you can read?”
    â€œCourse I can fucking read. I just happen to hate fucking reading. Give it to the Philosopher. He reads real books. I’ve caught him at it.”
    â€œBryan, you’re a lazy bastard. Take it home. Now.”
    â€œAw, fuck. Don’t be cruel to me, boss. In me whole fucking life I’ve never read anything longer than the label on a beer bottle.”
    Chef said, “Exactly. You’re virtually illiterate.”
    â€œYou saying I’m a bastard?”
    â€œI want intelligence around me. Culture. Understand? I want this organization to go upmarket.”
    â€œOK. But will you do us a favor, boss? Will you lend us some feed till payday? I’m skewed out.”
    Grumbling to himself, Chef slapped forty quid into Bryan’s outstretched hand. Upmarket? Fat fucking chance.
    *   *   *
    The next morning there was no one on the door of the club. Rawhead, dressed in the suit he’d worn for Billy Dye’s wedding, walked through the entrance and into the club itself. On a blackboard outside someone had written “Tonite for one nite only: Koo La Grace.” Koo La Grace was a famous Mancunian drag artiste. Little Malc was onstage, microphone in hand, rehearsing some crap patter. “Ladies and gentlemen … all the way from Little Lever near Bolton … the sensational, the unprintable, Manchester’s first lady … did I say lady?… Ladies and gents, let’s hear it please for the inimitable Koo La Grace.”
    A cleaner, somebody’s worn-out mum from Levenshulme, was wiping the bar for the minimum wage. A bored old twat sitting behind a drum kit gave his cymbal a clout.
    Little Malc grimaced. “What the fuck was that, Peter?”
    Rawhead sat down on a stool, not in a hurry, taking his time.
    The drummer shrugged. “I thought it sounded all right.”
    â€œIt sounded like a very old man breaking wind,” said Little Malc. “Start again.… Let’s hear it for Koo La Grace.”
    Little Malc waited. So did the drummer.
    â€œWhat are you waiting for?” demanded Little Malc.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI just gave you your fucking cue.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œWhen I said, ‘Let’s hear it for Koo La Grace.’”
    This time the drummer provided four bars of highhat.
    â€œWhat the fuck’s that?”
    â€œIt was meant to sound like a train.”
    â€œWhat’s a fucking train got to do with a drag queen from Bolton?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, yes?” said Little Malc. “Did I ask you a fucking question?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, why did you say yes?”
    â€œIt seemed appropriate,” said the drummer.
    â€œAppropriate to fucking what?” Little Malc covered his face in his hands. “Look. All I want is a drumroll. You can do a drumroll, can’t you?”
    The drummer provided a perfect drumroll.
    â€œGood. Right,” said Little Malc. “Now try doing it when I say, ‘Let’s hear it for Koo La Grace.’”
    Another drumroll.
    â€œWhat was that drumroll for?” said Little Malc.
    â€œYou said I should do it when you said ‘Koo La Grace.’”
    â€œNo! No!” Little Malc kicked the stage. “That