Den of Snakes

by Damian Vargas

  Judy slapped him on the arm. ‘That watch cost me ten thousand quid!’ she said.

  ‘You really reckon that Merc’s worth twenty grand, Ken?’ said Charlie, ignoring Roger and Judy’s disagreement. ‘Got the logbook, have you?’ Kenny shook his head. ‘More like ten, then,’ said Charlie who was now holding the last sheet of paper. He stared at it for a few seconds, then patted Eddie on the back, saying nothing.

  Carol’s inquisitiveness got the better of her, and she peeked at the item Eddie had written. ‘Military Cross and bar,’ she read out aloud. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s his medal, ain’t it? From the Falklands,’ said Bill.

  ‘You sure about that, son?’ said Mike. He seemed surprised.

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Eddie.

  Charlie had totted up the list. He frowned. ‘Dammit,’ he said.

  ‘How short are we?’ asked Roger.

  ‘Eighty grand’.

  ‘So what do we do?’ asked Kenny. Mike placed his glass down firmly and sat forward on the couch.

  ‘Can I propose something?’ he said, looking at the others.

  ‘Go on then,’ said Bill.

  ‘The Moroccan I met -’.

  Charlie slammed a fist onto the coffee table. ‘No,’ he barked.

  ‘It’s easy money,’ Mike replied tersely.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Judy, directing the question at Mike.

  Charlie answered. ‘He wants us to be drug dealers’.

  ‘It ain’t dealing. It’s just transporting,’ said Mike. ‘We’d just be helping the Moroccans offload their gear, and selling it on at a very attractive profit to our Dutch friends’.

  Charlie slammed the table again. ‘Are you fucking deaf? I said no’.

  Mike got up, slammed his glass down, splashing the contents onto the coffee table, and marched towards the door.

  ‘You coming?’ he said at Veronica, having already passed her and without waiting for a reply. Roger followed after Mike.

  ‘Let the grumpy fucker go,’ said Kenny.

  Roger shot Kenny an angry look. ‘And let him go do something stupid again? How will that help?’ He jogged off to catch Mike.

  ‘Here we go again,’ said Judy and put her glass down before following her husband.

  ‘So now what?’ asked Kenny.

  ‘We’ll have to raise money on our properties,’ said Charlie.

  ‘That ain’t a quick process,’ said Bill.

  ‘I’ll talk to Pickering. Get us some more time’.

  ‘You think he’ll wait?’ said Eddie, one hand clamped on the gunshot wound in his side.

  ‘What else is he gonna do?’ Charlie replied. ‘If we ain’t got the dough, we ain’t got it’.

  Kenny pushed himself up and shook Charlie’s hand. ‘Let me know what you need me to do’.

  Charlie walked Kenny, Bill and Carol out of the room and to the front entrance.

  Veronica was standing by the door watching the men leave, then wandered towards Eddie. She held out her hand to reveal the keys that Eddie had lost during the fracas with Mike at the beach club.

  He plucked them out of her open palm and stared at them, a wave of relief sweeping through his body. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Where did you find them?’

  ‘I went back to to the club to ask yesterday. One of the bar staff found them’.

  ‘You have no idea how relieved I am to see these again,’ he said. She stared at the key for a moment, her face portraying what seemed like a deep sadness. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  She shot him one of her contrived and debilitating smiles. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘See you around’. She spun around and strode away, leaving him alone.

  He had gazed at her departing figure until she was out of view, then stared once more at the keys.

  Thank fuck. That saves some explaining to Charlie.

  Eddie thrust the keys into his pocket just as Charlie returned, flanked by Kenny and Mike. They all bore concerned faces.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Trouble,’ said Kenny. Charlie strode to his office desk, unlocked a drawer and pulled out a silver revolver which he slipped into the waist of his jeans.

  ‘It’s Charlie’s bar,’ said Mike. ‘There’s been a fire’.

  The flames had been mostly extinguished by the time Charlie and Eddie arrived at what was now the former site of Charlie’s Bar. The road was blocked off by a police car, so Charlie double-parked further up the hill, and the brothers ran down to the chaotic scene.

  The fire crew were now sifting through the charred remains in search of the last vestiges of the blaze, giving an occasional burning ember a blast from their firehose as a precaution. The inferno had taken less than twenty minutes to turn the popular, ex-pat drinking hole into a pile of charred, wet timbers and soggy ash.

  Charlie lifted the temporary plastic police barrier and walked slowly to the bottom of the steps, of which only a few now remained. He was speechless.

  ‘I’m sorry, bruv,’ said Eddie, trying to console his brother.

  Barry, now a bar manager without a bar, was talking to the fire crew. He spotted Charlie and beckoned the Lawsons over. ‘This is the fire chief,’ he said. The man, a proud-looking individual who, Eddie guessed, was in his fifties, spoke in broken English.

  ‘Is bad fire. Very bad. Destroy all of building’.

  ‘I can see that,’ said Charlie. ‘What I want to know is how it started’.

  The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Is impossible to say today. The council, they send engineer to see and make a report’.

  ‘When?’ snapped Charlie.

  ‘I cannot say. Is not my department’.

  ‘I have valuable things stored in the basement. I need to get back into the building’.

  ‘Is not possible, Mr Lawson. There is much debris on the staircase from the roof. Metal and glass. Is dangerous. No persons are allowed until everything is cleared. Understand?’

  ‘Yeah, I understand,’ said Charlie, growling. He pulled Barry away from the fire chief. ‘Tell me what you know’.

  ‘I turned up at midday to open up, just like I always do. The door was already open, but I thought nothing of it. Sometimes one of the girls arrives before me so I didn’t clock it at first at went inside. That’s when I smelled the smoke. I called the fire service straight away then tried the cellar door, but the smoke was too thick’.

  ‘It started downstairs?’ said Eddie. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Hundred percent. As soon as I opened the door, I felt the heat’. The bar manager pointed to his face. ‘Look, I lost half of my fucking eyebrows’.

  ‘So someone broke in and set a fire in the basement?’

  ‘I think so, Charlie. Yes’, the barman said. ‘It makes no sense, right?’

  Charlie let the question hang. ‘Get yourself home, Baz. I’ll give you a bell when I need you’. The barman nodded and sauntered away.

  Charlie lit a cigarette and gazed at the smouldering pile of black debris. ‘The loan I took from Fernandez. I signed over the bar as collateral. Whoever set the fire must have known that. They’re trying to destroy me. And they’re succeeding’.

  ‘You can’t be sure of that,’ said Eddie.

  Two police officers and a fireman were erecting orange and white plastic barriers around the bar’s perimeter. A mobile TV news van had parked up at the police barrier. The crew were endeavouring to position their camera and sound equipment.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Charlie. They started up the hill towards the Porsche.

  ‘What now?’ said Eddie as he got into the car.

  ‘We got no choice, now,’ said Charlie. ‘Pickering’s crew. We’ve got to kill ‘em’.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Caught With Their Pants Down

  It had not taken the Five Bullet Crew more than a few minutes to arrive at a consensus on whether they should wipe out their East End rivals. Criminals are rarely willing to surrender the proceed
s of their risky trade, and the prospect of shelling out two hundred thousand pounds of their ill-gotten gains to Pickering’s crew had been a bitter pill to swallow.

  Now, with Charlie incandescent with rage at having seen the smouldering wreck of his cherished beach bar, and the likely prospect of their own business interests suffering a similar fate, it took less than ten minutes to drop five old bullet casings into the plastic cup with ’yes’ scribbled on the side of it. It had been a foregone decision. Driving to Charlie’s villa and dropping the quintet of brass cases into the cup had been a somewhat perfunctory process.

  ‘How and when?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Strike while the iron’s hot,’ said Mike. He reached for a large canvas kit bag, unzipped it to reveal several shotguns and pistols. ‘Who needs a heater?’

  Eddie looked at the open bag with dread. He felt the marble floor go soft beneath his feet and the ghostly odour of damp gorse and cordite seeped into his brain.

  ‘What about you, soldier boy?’ muttered Mike, ‘Ain’t no military cross in this for you’. Eddie was uncertain if Mike was trying to wind him up again, or whether he was offering him a way out.

  ‘Course he’s fucking doing it,’ said Kenny before Eddie could reply. ‘He’s one of us now’.

  ‘I don’t recollect him getting a bullet with his name on it,’ said Mike.

  Roger was examining an old Webley revolver that he had lifted out of Mike’s bag. ‘That one’s quite a kicker, mate. Sure your arthritis can handle it?’ said Mike.

  ‘Very fuckin’ funny,’ Roger replied. He pointed the unloaded revolver at the shaven man and made a ‘Bam!’ sound.

  ‘Careful, Rog,’ said Bill. ‘The last geezer what pointed a gun at Mikey ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life’.

  It was clear that Roger did remember and offered the weapon back to Mike. ‘I’ve got mine in my car,’ he said.

  Charlie stood to face to his brother and gave him a look that a disappointed schoolmaster might have made if his star pupil had just admitted he didn’t do his homework. ‘You’ve got my back on this, right?’ he said.

  Eddie pictured the moment their mother had made her deathbed request to his young self. Look after your brother, Eddie. He’s going to need you.

  ‘Ed?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘There’s got to be another way,’ Eddie said. ‘If you do this…if we do this, there ain’t no going back’.

  Kenny stood looking at Eddie like he was a gatecrasher at a high society wedding, where he was the bride’s wealthy father and Eddie some rag-wearing street oik. ‘They fucking torched your brother’s bar,’ Kenny said in an incredulous tone. ‘Ain’t no “going back” already. Not for them’.

  ‘How do we know the Cockneys did that?’ said Eddie.

  Kenny’s eyes bulged in their sockets. ‘It ain’t bleedin’ rocket science, is it? What do you want? Forensic bloody evidence? CCTV footage? Course it was fucking them’.

  ‘Eddie. Me and the lads would feel a lot better with you on our side, mate,’ said Roger.

  ‘Six against six,’ said Bill.

  Charlie steered his brother away from the others. ‘Ed, I know it’s asking a lot. I know you ain’t been with us very long, and this ain’t what I promised you…but I need to know I can count on you, bruv. Can I? Can I count on you?’ He looked into Eddie’s eyes, and then he said it. ‘The old girl did tell you to look after me, remember?’

  Fucker.

  ‘You think she meant this?’ said Eddie, pointing at Mike who was looking down the twin barrels of a sawn-off shotgun. ‘Coz, I don’t think so, Charlie’.

  ‘Ed, I’m worried. I -’.

  ‘So don’t do it. It’s that simple’.

  ‘They burned my bar down. They’re threatening our livelihoods’.

  ‘Build another bar,’ said Eddie.

  ‘And they made you shoot that kid in the face,’ Charlie whispered.

  Eddie pushed Charlie away. ‘You think I don’t fucking know that? You think I can’t see his fucking head explode? You think I don’t see them? All the faces of the people I killed?’ His throat was dry, his pulse racing. He felt dizzy.

  ‘It’s alright, Charlie. We’re gonna need a driver,’ offered Mike. ‘Eddie, just get us there and get us the fuck out again’.

  Charlie shook his head. ‘No. No, we need to outgun them,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve got surprise on our side,’ Mike replied. ‘It will be easy’. He looked at Eddie. ‘The kid’s done more than enough for this flipping crew already’.

  Charlie lifted a clenched fist towards Mike then, having thought twice, turned around and stormed out the door.

  Mike fixed Eddie with a respectful stare. ‘You wanna walk away, then walk away. This ain’t your fight’.

  Before Eddie could reply, however, Charlie returned to the room. He was holding a Browning 9mm semi-automatic. He pulled back the slide to cock it, peered into the breech, then released the slide and dry-fired the gun. Satisfied that it was in working order, he offered it up to Eddie. ‘You’re the driver. But you’re still packing. If it goes pear-shaped up there tonight, the boys here need to know they can count on you to help’. He grabbed Eddie’s left hand and thrust the cold weapon into it, then held up three loaded magazines. ‘Don’t disappoint me, bruv’.

  The crew decided to hit the old farm building that the East Londoners were using, at two o’clock in the morning, figuring that Pickering and his crew would be drunk, high, asleep or with any luck, all three.

  They drove up in an old Range Rover, one of Roger’s dwindling fleet, its tired old engine belching out clouds of smoke every time Roger had changed gear. Eventually they arrived at a clearing at the side of the road a little under a mile from where the Cockneys’ woodland hideout.

  ‘It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel, boys,’ said Kenny as he checked his gun, a Colt snub-nosed revolver. ‘They won’t have time to put their pants on before we drop ‘em,’

  ‘Yeah? Just make sure you shoot them and not me, you old sod,’ said Roger. Bill sniggered.

  ‘Oi! This ain’t fucking chimpanzee playtime,’ growled Mike, as they shook their legs after getting out of the car.

  The Five Bullet Crew was a group of hard bastards and good at their chosen profession, but a well-oiled strike team they were not. It would have been, Eddie thought, reminiscent of a slapstick scene from Dad’s Army if several people were not about to get killed. ‘This ain’t going to go well,’ he thought. He tapped his brother on the shoulder blade and whispered, ‘I’m coming with you’.

  Charlie shook his head. ‘No, you made your choice. Me and my crew have got this. You just be ready to get us out of here’. Charlie signalled at the rest of the group to move towards the farmhouse.

  ‘Stay low,’ Eddie whispered. ‘Watch your flanks’.

  ‘What’s that mean?’ he heard Bill ask. ‘Flanks?’

  Mike groaned. ‘Jesus fucking christ. Just keep your bleedin’ eyes peeled,’ he said.

  Eddie stood at the open car door watching Charlie and the crew move off into the dense pine forest that lay on the lower slope behind the farm building. They would be hidden from view until they were less than twenty feet away from the stone building. Assuming they were undetected, then they would be in the dwelling and upon the unsuspecting men in seconds.

  It was a tranquil night - almost silent, save for the occasional sound of leaves rustling in the light breeze. Eddie stood, leaning against the Range Rover, his senses operating at maximum sensitivity. Something did not feel right. His pulse quickened.

  And then he heard something.

  It sounded like a twig snapping. He orientated his head towards the source of the sound. Nothing. He pulled the Browning from the leather shoulder holster and slipped the safety catch off. Another sound. This time like a muffled sniff. Someone was watching him from the shadows.

  He lifted the pistol before him and creeped towards the sounds but froze when he heard yet another sound, this time much cl
oser and behind him. Then someone spoke.

  ‘Do not move,’ the voice ordered. It was Bobby Pickering. Eddie peered over his shoulder to see a standing figure obscured by a substantial tree trunk. The only illumination came from the moonlight, but it was sufficient for Eddie to see Pickering was pointing a machine pistol at him. ‘You might have been a fucking para, but this is a fucking MAC 10. Drop that pea shooter and put your hands on your head’. Eddie was familiar with the weapon, which could empty a thirty-round clip in less than two seconds. He did as instructed. ‘Good lad. Now back away from the gun, towards me’. Eddie took five slow strides backwards.

  ‘I can call them off, Bobby. Let me try,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Why would I do that, Edward? We’ve been waiting here all night for them geriatrics to turn up. Keep coming. That’s a good boy’.

  Eddie took three more steps before the night turned to day and his head filled with what seemed like lightning. He fell to his feet, blinded by the agony. ‘And that,’ said Pickering, ‘is what a good old fashioned blackjack feels like when it’s wrapped around your head’.

  Eddie curled up into a ball, trying to use his hands to protect himself from further blows, but found them being bound with tape. Two men pulled him to his feet, and he felt the cold, hard metal of the MAC 10 against the underside of his jaw.

  ‘Why ain’t we topping him here?’ said a second, younger voice.

  ‘Patience, Stevie. All will become clear’. The butt of the gun moved around to poke Eddie between the shoulder blades. ‘Now walk. Slowly and quietly. We don’t want to ruin the show’.

  Oblivious to the trap he was walking his crew into, Charlie reached the stone wall of the farmhouse first, peered around the corner then waved at the others to come forward. Mike, Roger, Bill then Kenny stood there in a line. Inside the building, they could make out the sound of someone snoring.

  ‘This is gonna be so fucking easy,’ said Kenny, grinning. Charlie pointed at Bill to go first.

  ‘Why me?’ asked Bill.