‘To ras,’ mumbled the others.
‘Yeah, well I do have a way of raisin a stake,’ said Mark, ‘but that’s all you gotta know until we hear wha’ the real deal is.’ Unbeknown to anyone, Mark had finally decided he wanted to leave Rachel and break away from his parents’ influence to start a new life with Marcia. The dejection he felt when the Aston Villa scout had asked about his younger brother Ian had been that final straw of misery that had made up his mind. But with the constant threat of redundancy the only way he could do it was to steal the money that paid the wages at his factory. It had started off as an idle fantasy as he watched the wages truck come and go every Thursday but as the weeks went by he had come up with a plan that could not fail. At first he thought he was mistaken but now his mouth went dry just with the thought of what he had stumbled across: a very short time in which bags of money were left unguarded in a safe that, contrary to directives, remained unlocked for long periods in the day.
Cecil Grant was the key to what Mark would do with the money he was planning to steal; if Cecil went along with what Nestor and Desmond were proposing then Mark and everyone else present would do too. The logic was simple: Nestor and Desmond would pull every skank imaginable to make money but the one man they would not dare to double-cross was Cecil Grant, as they knew only too well what he would do to ‘dem greedy clarts’.
‘It’s true that a heap-a coffins are comin from India but it’s wha’ inside dem that is gonna make the money,’ Desmond explained. ‘Steve is doin business with some Pakistani guy in Birmingham. The more money he puts in the more he draws. Now, Steve wants to make out that he has more money than he’s got so the Pakistani guy thinks he’s loaded. It’s the way these kind-a coolie go on, dem only respec money.’
‘Yeah, well I got somethin you an’ dem will respec if this turns out to be a skank,’ growled Cecil. ‘Where an’ when are these coffins landin?’
‘Couple-a weeks,’ said Nestor. ‘But Steve ain’t stupid, he ain’t sayin anythin ’bout where the stuff lands in case any-a unno want to rob it.’
Cecil looked over and swapped smiles with Bryce McBean. Beanie preferred to work on his own, mostly stealing the takings from supermarkets, but Cecil had often thought that they would make a good team if the prize were big enough. ‘So when do we get our money back?’ he asked. ‘Steve says that everythin is lined up an’ you would ’ave the money you put in two weeks after it lands,’ Desmond answered, ‘an’ two weeks after that you get the same amount again. This is a one-off opportunity, ’cause once Steve makes this deal him’ll ’ave so much money him won’t need the likes of we again, unnerstan?’
‘Then what’s in these coffins,’ asked Courtney, ‘ganja?’ Nestor rolled his lips momentarily before he answered, ‘Nah, man, ganja don’t raise this kind-a money, it’s heroin these guys are dealin with.’
Courtney sucked at his teeth. ‘I don’t know if I wanna get involved with brown, man, that narsty shit, seen?’
Nestor could sense that Cecil and the rest were now losing interest and looked over to Desmond for help. ‘Hey, Courtney,’ he said, ‘wha’ black man you know who do anythin but ganja? Heroin is a white ting, man, like coke an’ ting. So let the white man ’ave im habit but at a price ’cause since the Russians go into some place me never ’ear of, Alf-ganja-stan or somethin, the price has gone sky-rakstone-high.’
All eyes were now on Cecil Grant as he was the guarantor for everyone’s investment. For extra drama he looked up to the ceiling and let a forefinger slide up and down his throat. Finally, he lowered his chin and held Nestor and Desmond with one of his diamond-hard stares. ‘This is a big decision to make … Me say that we meet up nex’ trainin’ session an’ by then we’ll ’ave made our minds up an’ will know exactly how much cash we can raise. An’ you guys can let Stevie Patel know, though you nah mention my name, what’s gonna happen to him an’ you two, if me come into this deal an’ then don’t get every penny that me due.’ Nestor was going to ask for a more definite answer but all those standing in front of him were already nodding their heads in a manner that told him to try and get any more of a positive commitment would be a waste of time. ‘Right, right,’ he said disappointedly, ‘so nex’ week, yeah?’
Once they were alone, Desmond asked Nestor what he thought the chances were of them raising the one hundred grand they wanted. Steve Patel had promised them that if they could come up with that sort of money he would only then let them in on the deal that would see their investment at least trebled. ‘Cha,’ sighed Nestor, ‘it’s all down to Cecil, if he comes in then the rest-a dem follow. But wait, your ole man, him still good fe t’irty grand if we get to him quick.’ ‘But look, Nestor, you know me an’ him are like poison. The man never do nutten fe me except sen me to Jamaica so a bunch-a crazy people could beat me an’ … an’ …’
‘An’ wha’?’
‘… There’s some tings best lef unsaid, me-a tell you.’
‘Well, that’s why we should go check the man right now, the man owe you fe all the tings him didn’t do fe you when you was a bwoy. The man, owe you big-time, to ras.’
Nestor said nothing else for a while as he watched Desmond go through a flashback of his Jamaican experience: he knew it was happening from the way Desmond’s eyes had turned blank and the muscles at the edges of his mouth had started to twitch. He had first witnessed this happening to Desmond after playing a joke on him, locking him in the cupboard of a recently deceased old man when he had gone in search of his money. A high-pitched howl went up from inside, and when Nestor’s fit of hysterical laughter had subsided, he opened the cupboard door and found Desmond mumbling about his grandmother’s dress. ‘What’s that you seh, Nestor?’ Desmond now asked, as if unaware that several seconds had elapsed since Nestor had spoken.
‘Me seh, we go an’ see your ole man right now ’cause him owe you big-time.’
‘Big-time,’ muttered Desmond angrily. ‘Yeah let’s go see him right now.’
7
The evening had turned out to be a very disappointing one for Nestor Riley and Desmond Palmer. There were enough guys playing for Sabina Park Rangers who were making money through illegal means to have made the pair think that their teammates would have jumped at the chance that had been offered them. The trouble was, at least in their opinions, there was no one else around who was as smart as they were. It was this belief in their superior intelligence that allowed them to think that they would always come out on top no matter what and that they would never have to face the consequences of their skanks. To add to their frustration, there had been no answer when Nestor and Desmond had called in at Mervyn’s house. To make sure he wasn’t just hiding from them, they went around the back and broke in through a kitchen window. There was no sign of him or, come to think of it, his new Austin Princess. When they checked his wardrobe and saw that he had not packed they decided to stay for a while. Nestor figured that he was out celebrating and wanted to take advantage of Mervyn’s drunken state to persuade him to part with most of his winnings, but Desmond had thoughts of torture crossing his mind. They found a couple of cans of Red Stripe and settled down, but by the morning all they had to show for their troubles were horribly coated tongues and stiff backs from sleeping in the badly-sprung armchairs.
As he woke, something about Mervyn’s recent purchase occurred to Nestor Riley. ‘Hey,’ he said while shaking Desmond’s arm, ‘I jus thought ’bout your ole man’s money. I bet he didn’t buy that car with im winnins. I bet he ain’t even collected it yet an’ he’s got a stash-a cash some place.’ Mervyn Palmer was not the sort to trust a bank with his money and the idea that he might have some hidden in his house immediately roused Desmond. They had searched enough houses of the recently deceased to know that if there was any money around then they had a good chance of finding it. Over the months they had found money secreted in tea caddies, disused fireplaces, toilet cisterns and under loose floorboards. Only once had they found anything hidden under a mattress. Desm
ond went upstairs and it wasn’t long before he found rolls of money in a pair of shoes and in the lining of a navy blue suit. ‘How much?’ asked Nestor.
‘Six grand.’
‘Not bad, that means we got nearly twenty. Another eighty, man, an’ we’re cool,’ Nestor said. The thought of the vast sum of money that Desmond’s fleet of BMWs would bring in had crossed his mind. He had yet to raise the subject as he knew how much they meant to Desmond – if only because he had taken the trouble to kidnap and enslave Jas just to look after them; although he was beginning to wonder if there was more to their relationship than that. Desmond pushed the banknotes deep into an inside jacket pocket. ‘Let’s hope the guys come forward with the dunsai nex’ week, or some lonely millionaire dies real quick,’ he said. This was as good a time as any, thought Nestor. ‘We’re gonna have to consider doin everyting an’ anyting to get that money, y’know, ’cause this is a once-in-a-lifetime ting, Des.’
Desmond sucked at his teeth as if he had just been told the obvious for the thousandth time. ‘But me know already,’ he said, ‘an’ me ready to do it – as long as it don’t include sellin’ mi batty or any of mi BMW.’
They had previously talked about setting up some sort of pyramid scheme, defrauding the DHSS on a large scale, or even trying to rig one of the poker games that took place late at night in the room below Horace’s salon – but these schemes would all take too long to produce the amount of money they wanted. Selling shares in ‘coffin importation’ seemed to be a good idea as it would bring in those who were naive and desperate, and at the same time, the reality of the deal would attract those who were neither scared nor had any scruples about getting involved in funding a massive narcotics deal. ‘You could always buy the BMWs back when we made the money,’ Nestor ventured.
Desmond’s face contorted with real disgust at the idea. ‘Oi, behave yuhself, man,’ he said without a hint of irony, ‘if we don’t ’ave some standards we’re jus’ goin’ on like beasts, isn’t it?’
Friday mornings were always busy in Horace’s barber shop, but this Friday was especially busy because of the beauty pageant that was to be held at the Star and Moon nightclub that evening. Whatever the attitudes about such contests in the wider world, they were very popular amongst the West Indian men of Wolverhampton and very good for business too. In order to make the most of this prosperous line of enterprise, the club’s management had done their best to come up with variations on the theme. Once they had got the Miss Star and Moon competition out of the way; there was Miss Swimsuit (minimum covering of the cratchies required); Miss Wolverhampton Afro-Caribbean; Miss Black West Midlands (although the lighter the skin the better the chance of winning); Glamorous Grannies (proof of grandchild must be produced); and Moms and Daughters (minimum age seventeen). It was therefore intriguing that they merely advertised tonight’s event as a ‘beauty contest with a difference’. Word had got around that the contestants would be nude, or at least topless, but that this could not be advertised as such because of some old law about keeping a disorderly house – or some other ‘rasclart ting’.
Most of Horace’s customers were young men who wanted to look their best for the weekend. Before the wet-look curly perm became socially acceptable on a man’s head – as well as on a woman’s in the mid-eighties – a generation of fashionable black men had to go through the rigmarole of combing out, oiling and finally plaiting long hair, prior to retiring to bed with stockings on their heads. Once the hair had been combed out it was essential that the young black man always carry an Afro comb with him to ensure that his head looked perfectly symmetrical at all times. It was such a nerve-wracking process to get from home to a club with perfect hair that many men developed the Afro-hump, which came about because of the permanent stoop some of them had to adopt to avoid the bigger Afro brushing the roof of a car while driving. Sticking your head through a sunroof was not an option. For men of Frank Grant’s generation, the Afro belonged on a woman’s head. For younger guys who didn’t want to run the risk of being stigmatised as ‘’avin a ’ead like a gal’, a simpler solution to the hair problem was to get a big woollen hat or turn Rasta.
Horace McIntosh was cleaning his electric razor before lunch when he asked Frank Grant what he had thought of Mark Beckford’s attitude during training the night before. ‘Him look a’right,’ said Frank, ‘him say im ’amstrings are sore but him’ll be fit fe de final.’
Horace was not convinced; he thought his star player seemed distant and had avoided giving a direct answer when he was asked if he’d heard any more from Aston Villa. ‘Me was tinkin more about im mental hattitude.’
‘Im mental hattitude?’
‘Yeah, man, like him distracted.’
‘Look, man, dem was all distracted last night. Dem was waitin fe Nestor an’ Desmond to turn up, de two-a dem ’ave come up with some get-rich-quick ting, Norman was tellin me about it. Steve Patel is bringin in t’ousands of coffins from hIndia an’ dem talkin some foolishness about doublin money in a month.’
‘Doublin money, eh? Well, you know we all gonna need a coffin one day, for true.’
‘Yeah, well Audley tell Desmond to go see im daddy an’ arks him fe some-a im money.’
‘Maybe dat’s why we nah see Mervyn today, him out now doublin im money.’
‘Cha, Horace, man, one ting Mervyn nah do is give im money to Desmond, whatever de plan. Him don’t like de bwoy an’ de bwoy don’t like im father.’
‘But money talks an’ no one makes money like a coolie.’ ‘Yeah, well if you tink dat go give dem a t’ousand of your money. But me? No, sah, me-a go de bookies first, at least me ’ave a chance of seein’ it again.’
Frank went for his lunchtime trip to the bookies and for the first time in days he left Horace preoccupied by something other than football. Horace often thought that too many West Indians, particularly Jamaicans, had got into the habit of cussing other people’s entrepreneurial talents and were too ready to make accusations when the aptitude for business had reaped its rewards and they had missed out. Horace knew that his barber shop had once drawn the same sort of resentful comments. Back in the fifties he had seen his opportunity and he was now beginning to think that there just might be another opportunity coming along that was too good to refuse.
At the Bilston steel plant Mark Beckford sat at his desk thinking about money and Marcia. He hadn’t mentioned anything to her about his plans for the two of them; he thought it best not to say anything until he had counted out the proceeds of his thievery. It was difficult to concentrate because, try as he might, he could not help but try to figure out how much he could get away with. He could not be greedy; that was one of the deadly sins, whereas stealing was simply breaking a commandment. He could only risk taking the contents of one cash bag. In six days’ time he could be a rich man and he felt excited, not scared by the idea. Then it would be down to Nestor and Desmond to double his ill-gotten gains before he could finally set off for a new life with Marcia.
The teeth-grinding boredom had him sliding his newspaper from the drawer and placing it on his lap so he could read the back page. It was mostly about the Wolves team and whether they could avoid relegation to the Second Division after suffering a demoralising defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in the replay of the FA Cup semifinal. But it wasn’t long before the newspaper was back in his desk and Mark was staring out of the window replaying his favourite fantasies. They used to be dreams of glories on the football pitch. When he was a kid he would go to bed wearing a football jersey rather than pyjamas and dream of walking out from a tunnel and onto the turf of Anfield, Old Trafford, Highbury or even Wembley. He had scored his greatest ever goal to get Sabina Park Rangers to the final and it should have been one of the highlights of his career. But the memory of it was now clouded by disappointment: not even that example of brilliance was good enough for him to be wanted by a professional club. His mind turned back to the bag of money he planned to steal; football no longer seemed so important.
8
Like blood in the water, by Friday night the scent of money was wafting around the nose-holes of many in Wolverhampton’s West Indian households. News of the double-your-money scheme had spread rapidly once Nestor Riley and Desmond Palmer had put it to the players of Sabina Park Rangers in the changing room at Aldersley Stadium. Fierce arguments were already raging about if it could be true or not. For some it was just too good to be true and they were already threatening violence to anyone who tried to skank them, but there were others who countered that the proposition made perfect sense as coffins were always in demand whatever the economic climate
‘Who involve?’
‘Some coolie.’
‘Cha, you can’t trust no coolie in dis country.’
‘Him runs de funeral home in Sweetman Street.’
‘So ’ow much him want?’
‘Minimum a t’ousand. Him ’ave customers lined hup so you get yuh t’ousand an’ annoda t’ousand back hin a week.’
‘hIn a week?’
‘hIn a week, to rasclart!’
‘Mi ras! But wait, me nah ’ave no t’ousand pound.’
‘Well me ’ave five hundred if you can find a lickle raise.’
‘Yeah, man, me can raise five hundred. So wha’ happen then?’ ‘We go see Mervyn’s son, the one wid all de nice cars who works for de coolie, him tekin care of the runnins. ’Ow you tink him an’ im farda buy so many nice cars, man, dem ’ave money long time before him win the pools, to ras.’ ‘To ras.’
MORE THAN a GAME Page 6