DEATHLOOP by G. Brailey Page A

you been, man?” asked Sid, as he took his first shot, sounding not a little hurt.
    “Busy, mate,” said Zack.
    “Is that right? Well, you’re looking good,” said Sid, who had a very strong sense of style and who had always admired Zack’s effortless glamour. “You still with that Italian bird?”
    “Hell, no, she’s long gone.”
    “Give us her number then, I liked her.”
    “Too crazy for you, Sid, she’d eat you up.”
    “Yeah… well… funny enough that’s what I had in mind… and anyway, all your birds are crazy, every last one,” said Sid, moving a ball slightly with his thumb and hoping Zack wouldn’t notice, but Zack did notice and it made him smile. “Why is that?” he said. “Why pick out all the head bangers?”
    “I seem to attract them, for some reason,” said Zack.
    “So… you been a good boy lately, have you? Keeping your nose to the grindstone, keeping away from me,” said Sid with a chuckle, flashing the gold in his mouth. “And how is the little troll? Still giving you a hard time?”
    “He’s all right is Sam, just a bit straight, that’s all.”
    “He’s like Napoleon, that geezer, you should send him away to sea,” said Sid, letting out a trickle of laughter, clearly taken with the idea.
    A joint passed between Sid and Zack and it was so strong, it blew Zack’s head off. They didn’t care about things like that in this particular hostelry, if they had, they’d have been out of business in a week. Sid was like the Queen, he didn’t carry money and he could drink for England, Zack always struggled to keep up. A couple of hours and sixty quid later, Zack was swaying slightly, but Sid remained resolutely sober. Zack presumed it was Sid’s weight that soaked up the alcohol because something certainly did.
    During the course of the evening, Sid admitted to Zack that he didn’t really do drugs anymore, he preferred vodka, (to which Zack had wanted to reply, ‘yes, I’ve noticed’), but what he did have, Sid told him, he could have.
    Sid’s flat on the top floor of Soweto Towers was always packed out with Stuff. Sid didn’t know what half of it was anymore, it had just accumulated over the years and now the idea of sorting it out was too traumatic even to contemplate. “Life’s too short and that’s the truth,” said Sid, gazing mournfully across the avalanche. Everyone knew that when things were lost in Sid’s flat, usually they were lost for good.
    Sid told Zack that once he’d gone off to the shops for a pork pie, brought it back and put it down somewhere never to be seen again.
    “ Never to be seen again, ” said Sid, wide eyed, with the tone of someone describing an alien abduction, “how about that, man?” he said, incredulous, “ how about that ?”
    Looking round now Zack could well believe it. Things had deteriorated rather since last he was here, and now Zack struggled to find anywhere to sit.
    “Sit down there,” said Sid, pointing to a chair piled high with newspapers, “move all that, just tip it on the floor, here…” Sid took the newspapers and slung them, brushing down a small kitchen chair for Zack’s use.
    “Now, where’d I put that stuff,” said Sid, vaguely, as he rambled off to search.
    Zack let out a heartfelt sigh. Sid had given Zack the impression that the small quantity of uppers and downers he had in his possession were accessible, but if Sid had to sift through this lot to find them, Zack realised he could well be here for the duration. As Zack heard Sid rummaging around in another room, muttering to himself, and realising he might be in for a long wait, he curled up on the couch on top of clothes and books and empty take away containers, because suddenly Zack’s eyes were beginning to close.
    Susan felt quite deflated after she broke the window at Bellinis, and now, two days later, she was plagued by regret. Zack was right, she could have hurt someone and that was just not on. She had been eaten up with jealousy when she