Den of Snakes

by Damian Vargas

  Charlie slammed his hands down on the top of the dashboard. ‘Now, that’s how it’s fuckin’ done,’ he shouted. He pulled out onto the A7. ‘You can sit up now, bruv. That dumb fuck’s still sitting there staring at the Porsche. Miguel will take him on a wild goose chase for an hour’. He laughed.

  ‘That was impressive,’ said Eddie, as he buckled himself in.

  ‘Told you, bruv. You have to be smart in this game’.

  Charlie came off at the next junction, drove down to the underpass beneath and crossed under the dual carriageway before rejoining it in the opposite direction.

  They drove westward for about thirty minutes before pulling over once more to a petrol station near Estepona. Charlie gave Eddie some money to pay for the fuel, while he filled the car up. ‘Get us plenty of fags. It’s gonna be a long journey’.

  Another hour later, they pulled over at a roadside hotel near Algeciras. Charlie selected a secluded parking spot to the building’s rear. Eddie glanced at the clock on the dashboard - it was nearing nine o’clock in the evening. The sun was setting far off to their West.

  ‘Right,’ said Charlie, as he got out of the car. ‘We’re stopping here tonight’. Eddie closed the passenger door behind him and stretched his back. ‘We’ll get a decent meal down us and try to get as much kip as we can. We set off again at six’.

  They strolled around to the entrance at the front of the building. An old man sat in a wooden rocking chair, watching the traffic go by. He was wearing a pair of old grey trousers and a stained chequered shirt with braces. His skin was dark and wrinkled, and he appeared to be blind. Several empty brown beer bottles lay on the ground next to him. He started to laugh maniacally as Charlie and Eddie walked past, holding up a chipped, metal cup.

  ‘Wonder what that old sod’s laughin’ at?’ said Charlie as he walked into the hotel.

  Eddie fetched a few coins out of his jeans pockets and dropped them into the cup. The man continued to laugh. ‘Perhaps he knows something we don’t,’ he wondered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Road To Mérida

  The brothers set an alarm for 5:30 am and were on the road half an hour later. Eddie took the first driving stint, the four and half hour leg up to Mérida, where they pulled over at a roadside cafe for some much-needed coffee and food. They sat outside on a wooden picnic table, basking in the glorious sunshine.

  ‘What do you think mum would say about this?’ asked Eddie as the waitress arrived with their order.

  ‘About what?’ muttered Charlie, who sat sprawled on the opposite bench, his eyes shut.

  ‘You and me, doing this job together’.

  Charlie yawned. ‘I reckon you know the answer to that one,’ he replied. Eddie stared into his mug of coffee.

  ‘Thing is,’ he said. ‘She made me promise to stick clear of trouble, but she also told me to look out for you’.

  ‘So you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,’ said Charlie. He still had his eyes closed and looked like he was about to drift off.

  ‘Drink your coffee, I don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel. You’re doin’ the next two hundred miles’. Charlie groaned, opened his eyes and sat up. Eddie pushed the bowl of sugar cubes toward him.

  Charlie waved them away. ‘I’m sweet enough already,’ he said loud enough for the waitress to hear. She rolled her eyes upwards and walked away, Charlie staring at her backside.

  ‘I thought we were on a tight schedule?’ said Eddie. Charlie lifted the mug to his mouth and blew on the hot liquid. Eddie looked up to the sky. There was a trio of eagles overhead. They looked magnificent, drifting in the warm wind, their heads darting from left-to-right searching for a target.

  ‘What was it like down there?’ said Charlie, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘Down where?’ Eddie asked, although he knew what his brother was referring to.

  ‘The Falklands’.

  Eddie sighed. ‘It was cold. Cold and wet,’ he said.

  ‘Did you see much action?’ asked Charlie.

  Eddie put his cup down. ‘What do you want to ask me, Charlie? If I shot anyone. If I killed any Argies?’ Intense memories flashed before Eddie’s eyes. He shrugged them away.

  ‘Rough, huh?’

  ‘Not so much at the time. The training kicks in. You’re not thinking about what you’re doing. It just…happens. Like you’re watching a film or something’.

  ‘And afterwards?’ said Charlie.

  Eddie pulled a packet of Marlboro Reds out of his pocket, put one in his mouth and lit it. ‘The army doesn’t do much to prepare you for that part. They only teach you how to do the killing stuff. You’re supposed to handle what happens afterwards, yourself. Coz that’s what proper men do, right?’

  ‘I heard Dad talking about it once,’ said Charlie.

  His brother’s statement surprised Eddie, who had never heard his step-father talk about his wartime experiences. ‘He never said nuffin to me. Or mum. At least, not as far as I know. When was this?’

  Charlie’s face screwed up as he struggled to recall the moment. ‘It was in the working men’s club in South Harrow. You was a baby, so early sixties. It was a New Year’s Eve, I remember that. He was properly tanked up. They all was, the blokes. Us kids was supposed to be in the family room, but I’d gone in to scrounge for a glass of squash or something. He didn’t know I was standing there. He was at a table with about five other fellas, talking about one of his friends gettin’ killed in a tank. Dad had tried to get the poor bastard out, to save him. But it was all on fire. He said he could hear his mate screaming as he burned inside’.

  Charlie took a sip of the coffee. His eyes were watering up.

  ‘Dad was crying. In a right mess, he was. And this was like twenty years later and he still hadn’t got over it. At first, I didn’t get it. I…we only knew him as that mean bastard, right?’ He sipped his coffee, then continued. ‘You know what he was like with us. No affection. But there he was, a total mess. And all his pals were consoling him’. Charlie looked up at Eddie. ‘And that’s when I understood’.

  ‘Understood what?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Why he was like he was. Why he was always angry. Why he screamed at us for no reason and lashed out at mum. Why he hit us. And why he drank. I ain’t making excuses for him. He was a bastard at times, there ain’t no denying that. But he never got past it, Ed. The war, I mean. What he did, what he saw. It stayed with him all his life. It destroyed him. The bloke that mum married in the late thirties. He went off to war, and he never came back. Not really’. He placed the mug down.

  ‘Is that why you never came to see me off?’ said Eddie. ‘Before I joined up, I mean? Did you think I’d come back like him?’ Charlie shrugged. ‘I wrote to you. Several times’.

  Charlie averted his gaze. His fingers were scratching at his stubble. ‘I thought you were throwing your life away,’ he said. ‘You always had so much more going for you than me, because you’re smart. You could have done anything’.

  ‘Plenty of people would say serving your country was doing something’.

  ‘And where’s it got you, bruv?’ He leaned forward, but Eddie pulled away from him. ‘I heard you when you were sleeping. Shouting. Moaning’. You sounded just like Dad used to. Maybe you ain’t as bad as he was, I dunno. You tell me. But either way, being a para ain’t exactly set you up for life has it?’

  Eddie exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘Maybe you’re right. The old man was how he was and I fucked up my marriage, coz I went to war. So what’s your excuse? For being a villain?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Coz that moment, seeing him like that, that’s when I knew I weren’t gonna let that happen to me. I was going to get what I wanted from the world’.

  Eddie shook his head. ‘Other people get what they want from this life without holding up banks, Charlie’.

  ‘Not people like us. We’re just cattle. Cannon fodder. Nobody gives a monkey’s about the likes of you and me, Ed. That’s why I did what I did. Same for
the other lads. We would not be told what to do, how to live our lives. We wanted our fair share. So we took it’.

  Eddie stubbed out his cigarette in a white ashtray on the table. ‘Why are we talking about this now?’

  Charlie looked up at the eagles as they drifted above them once more. ‘Dunno. Seemed like an opportune time’. He looked at his watch. ‘Guess we should get back on the road’. He pulled some money out of his wallet and placed it under his mug.

  They both stood up and started walking towards the gold Vauxhall saloon. ‘Right,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re in charge of the music. But none of that “tears for queers” crap though’.

  The rest of the trip was uneventful, and they arrived at the port at Vigo just before nine o’clock that evening.

  One of the trawler’s crew, a tall, gangly man in a yellow rain mac, guided them in with a torch and they parked the Vauxhall inside an old wooden boathouse. The rest of the crew turned up half an hour later in the black and grey Ford Granada.

  ‘Good trip?’ asked Charlie. ‘Did Mike get lost?’

  ‘Nah, but we’ve had to keep the windows open the last two hours on account of Roger’s arse,’ said Bill.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ said Roger, one hand rubbing his stomach. ‘Them bleedin’ tapas dishes are playin’ havoc with my gut’.

  ‘Great,’ said Charlie. ‘We’re gonna be stuck in a bleedin’ fishing boat with you for the next thirty-six hours. He turned toward the cars. ‘Get the kit onboard and stowed sharpish. We don’t want nobody seeing us if we can help it’. They each grabbed a bag out of the car boots.

  ‘Ha terminado?’ asked the fisherman, pointing at the cars. Charlie nodded, and the Spaniard pulled a large tarpaulin over each of the vehicles. Mike was standing outside, scanning their surroundings.

  ‘All clear?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Seems so’. The crew made their way through a series of narrow passages between the workshops, garages and lockups that stood between them and the waterfront.

  ‘So, what’s the boat skipper get out of this gig?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Fifty grand,’ said Bill. ‘Twenty now, thirty when he drops us back’.

  Eddie whistled. ‘Well, I hope the onboard cafeteria service is up to scratch,’ he replied.

  ‘Beans on toast. A lot of it,’ said Bill.

  ‘Just what Roger’s guts need,’ said Mike in disgust.

  The trawler’s skipper was pacing alongside his boat when they arrived. ‘I am Xavier, the captain of this ship. We must be quick. The Guardia Civil patrol here often’. He gestured towards the gangway that led from the quayside up into the boat. The pungent stench of fish was all around them.

  ‘Flippin’ heck. It ain’t gonna pong like this the whole bleedin’ way, is it Charlie?’ said Roger.

  ‘Retribution for the car ride,’ said Bill. ‘You sure you didn’t shit yourself’. Eddie could not help laughing out loud.

  ‘Shhhh!’ said Charlie.

  ‘I told you I didn’t want that tapas,’ said Roger.

  ‘Christ all fuckin’ mighty. Call yourself professional villains?’ said Charlie. ‘It’s like being in a bleedin’ Carry On film with you lot. Shut the fuck up and get in the boat’. The skipper signalled to two of his crew to pull up the gangplank and told the Englishmen to follow him.

  ‘I’ll take you to your bunks’. He moved to pick up Mike’s bags but was rewarded with a short growl.

  ‘Just show us the way,’ said Charlie.

  The boat appeared to be in perfect condition, Eddie observed. ‘How big is she?’ he asked the skipper.

  ‘Forty metres,’ the Spaniard replied. ‘She’s only one-year-old’. He pulled open a hatch and waved at the crew to go in. ‘It is the room at the end. There is clean bedding, and the heaters have been on for an hour. It should be…how you say…“toasty”, in there’. He laughed. ‘We leave in twenty minutes. Keep away from the windows and don’t come up to the top deck until we’re at sea’.

  Charlie stopped as he reached the open hatch and held out a brown package. ‘Twenty grand. Like you and Roger agreed’.

  ‘A pleasure doing business with you, Señor Lawson’. They made their way along the corridor towards the cabin. As the captain had promised, the heating was on and each bed had been made. Eddie took off his jacket and stuffed his things into a tall metal cabinet.

  ‘I’ll take the bottom bunk,’ said Charlie. ‘It’ll be like when we was kids’.

  Eddie stepped onto the short ladder at the side of the bed and hauled himself up, then sank into the mattress.

  ‘Anyone up for a spot of poker,’ said Mike, waving a set of playing cards in the air.

  ‘Nah, I’m flippin’ knackered,’ said Roger.

  ‘Me too,’ said Bill. Mike tutted in disappointment.

  ‘Boring bastards,’ said Mike.

  ‘Nobody wants to play, coz you always take their money you cheatin’ bastard,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It ain’t cheatin’ if you don’t get caught,’ replied Mike as he clambered into his bunk.

  ‘Wise words, Michael,’ said Bill.

  ‘They was, weren’t they?’ Mike said as he pulled his blanket over him. ‘Might be my next tattoo. If we get away with this job’. Deep below them, the trawler’s engines started up. The cabin walls hummed from the vibrations.

  ‘Sleep well, gents,’ said Charlie as he flicked the light switch off. Eddie closed his eyes but could not suppress fleeting memories of the arduous journey he had made down to the South Atlantic in a very similar cabin. A journey from which several of his fellow paras had not returned.

  A long, squelchy fart erupted from where Roger lay, already fast asleep.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ muttered Mike, and buried his head under his pillow.

  It’s gonna be a long trip, thought Eddie, with a smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Back In Blighty

  The trawler docked at Lowestoft late in the afternoon, two days later. Eddie listened as Charlie spoke with the skipper, making sure that the man understood the schedule, as the crew made their way down the gangway. Roger’s cousin, Gary, was waiting for them on the dock next to a well-used, blue and cream-coloured Commer camper van.

  Mike kicked one of the van’s rear tyres and gave Gary a disapproving look. ‘You tellin’ me this wreck’s getting us to Kilburn?’ he said.

  ‘The limo’s in for a service, Michael,’ said Gary, laughing. ‘It’ll get us there, don’t worry. I’ve been all over the country in this beauty. She won’t let us down’.

  ‘I won’t be frickin’ laughing if the fuzz pull us over when a bleedin’ wheel falls off’.

  ‘Stop fucking kickin’ it then,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s fine. Get in’.

  It took three hours to get to the temporary digs, a semi-derelict maisonette in Kilburn. Gary parked the van on a nearby street.

  ‘It’s through there,’ he said while pointing towards the entrance to an alleyway. ‘Five minutes walk. I don’t wanna park too close’. The crew clambered out from the van, its hot engine ticking in the chilly evening air, and stretched weary arms and legs.

  ‘Next time, find something a bit newer,’ said Mike, still unimpressed.

  ‘Ain’t gonna be a next time,’ said Charlie. ‘This was one last job, remember?’ The crew made their way through the dark alleys until Gary stopped at the back entrance to one of the terraced houses. He fetched a key from out of his pocket and unlocked the wooden gate.

  ‘C’mon, get in. We’ve got the upstairs maisonette’.

  ‘No neighbours?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Nah. Downstairs was a squat for a bit. Right bleedin’ mess it is. Ain’t nobody gonna want to live in there till it’s fixed up, and the geezer what owns the place ain’t, shall we say, at liberty to do that just yet’.

  ‘Mate of yours?’ asked Roger.

  Gary nodded. ‘He got sent down for shifting stolen motors about a year ago. He’s not out for another six mo
nths. I gave his missus three hundred quid to use it’.

  Eddie saw a flicker of a smile on Gary’s face. ‘Grateful was she?’ he asked.

  ‘In many ways,’ said Gary. He was smirking as he opened the back door.

  They made their way up the outside staircase to the upper floor. Gary flicked on the hallway light. ‘Living room’s straight through. You can dump all the kit in there. There’s two bedrooms, both with mattresses on the floor, and two sofas. I brought plenty of blankets’.

  Roger picked up one blanket, which was cream-coloured with two blue stripes. ‘Hang on. These are from the bleedin’ war,’ he said. He ran his hand over the blanket’s material. ‘They’re itchy as fuck’.

  Gary shrugged and walked into the kitchen. Eddie peered into one bedroom and was hit straight away by the damp, musty smell. The wallpaper was peeling off the wall in places. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, bereft of a lampshade.

  Mike stood next to him, distinctly unimpressed. ‘I’ve stayed in better prisons’.

  ‘What was you expecting, the fuckin’ Hilton?’ said Charlie.

  ‘It’ll do just fine,’ said Bill. ‘It’s only for a few days. We’ll be back in Spain before you know it’.

  ‘If everything goes to plan,’ said Roger.

  ‘If everyone does their bleedin’ jobs,’ said Charlie.

  Eddie felt the compulsion to touch the wooden door frame for luck, before walking into the room and dropping his heavy rucksack down onto one of the single mattresses. The crew unpacked their kit while Gary went out to pick up some takeaway food. He arrived back half an hour later, carrying two bags laden with food.

  ‘What d’ya get?’ asked Roger.

  ‘Hopefully, something that ain’t gonna make your arse any worse,’ said Mike.

  Gary lifted the bags up to reveal the writing on them. ‘Indian’.

  ‘Christ all fuckin’ mighty,’ muttered Mike. ‘Get the windows open’.