The Drop

was no sign of him of course and no fresh sightings either.
    I called in at the Newcastle Arms then outside Faces a teenage girl in a bikini, with goose bumps on her arms, stuffed a leaflet into my hands promising me ‘live entertainment’. An obscure former Toon ‘legend’ was due to talk to the fans and there would be more girls in bikinis plus a couple of strippers. With football, beer and half-naked girls on offer I would have been surprised if I hadn’t spotted at least one of our lads in there, so I walked in. The music was pumping and it was pretty dark. I ordered another pint while I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom and then I spotted Billy Warren heading towards me. He fought his way through a crowd of football fans ogling a blonde stripper with a boob job that made her look like an adult Barbie doll.
    ‘Good to see you man,’ he told me like I was a long lost friend. He offered me a cold and pasty hand which I shook. He looked terrible. I didn’t know how much of his own product he was using these days but he definitely had the undernourished look of the professional dope head.
    ‘How’s business Billy?’ I had to shout it into his ear to make myself heard.
    He raised his hand and wobbled it from side to side, ‘Same old, same old,’ he said, ‘it’s all gone a bit credit crunch thanks to K.’
    ‘Ketamine?’
    ‘Yeah, time was when everybody did a bit of blow, which is pretty pricey so it had more profit. Now they all want Ket, which is cheaper so… ’
    ‘Less profit.’
    ‘Exactly,’ he said it like I was the Brain of Britain for working that out. ‘Can’t blame ‘em I s’pose. K is half the price of coke. Twenty quid a gram these days so all the young ‘uns want it instead of blow.’
    ‘Yeah but vets use it don’t they?’ Call me old-fashioned but I wouldn’t take something that’s used to tranquilise horses.
    ‘I s’pose,’ he admitted, ‘but it works for people too. It gives them that nice boozy high without the paranoia, know what I mean?’
    I did and I didn’t. Drugs might be the foundation of our business model these days but they left me cold. I liked to stay in control and most coke heads I’d met had a pretty thin grasp on what constituted reality. I’d heard about people taking Ketamine and floating off to happy land. It was meant to be the recession-busting drug. Why go out when you can just invite your mates round, take some K and sit there giggling at each other? To me it just sounded boring. Booze was more my thing. I liked to go out.
    There was a brief burst of applause for the blonde with the boob job as she finished one dance and began another. She wasn’t my type. I preferred the natural look, ‘What have you heard about Geordie Cartwright?’ I asked Billy.
    ‘The last time I saw him was a few days back, he was in City Vaults,’ he replied a bit quickly.
    ‘Yeah?’ I wondered why he didn’t ask me why I was asking. Maybe he thought that was my business.
    ‘Yeah, he was at the bar, talking to some Russian bloke.’
    ‘A Russian bloke,’ I asked, ‘you sure?’
    ‘Well, he sounded Russian, yeah I’d say so. I dunno, I s’pose he could have been Polish or something, how should I know, but he looked like a Russian.’
    ‘And what did this guy look like, apart from Russian?’
    ‘A big fucker, about six-foot-five. A beefy bloke with a shaved head,’ and he laughed, ‘he looked like something James Bond would have to fight.’ And he grinned and waved his hands around in front of me like he was doing martial arts.
    ‘Okay,’ I said, trying to disguise my very obvious interest in this development, ‘and what were they talking about?’
    He shrugged. ‘Fuck knows, I wasn’t really paying attention. I just ordered my pint near them, said hello to Cartwright and left them to it.’
    ‘Did it look like they knew each other well then?’
    ‘Well it looked like they hadn’t just met but I dunno. Maybe the bloke was on his holidays and Cartwright was just chatting to him.’
    ‘On his holidays? In Newcastle?’
    ‘I dunno, maybe he was a football fan or something.’
    ‘I repeat, in Newcastle?’
    ‘Yeah, well, I dunno, right. All I know is Cartwright was talking to a Russian bloke and they seemed pretty pally. That’s all I know mate. What can I say?’
    ‘That’s alright Billy. No bother.’
    ‘Was that useful like?’ he asked hopefully.
    ‘Who knows mate, who knows?’ I drained my pint. ‘Enjoy the