by J. D. Weston
Then, as if asking a question, he searched from his man to Harvey and back again, finally resting on Harvey with magnified cold eyes, tinted brown by the lenses of his thick-framed glasses. He took a final, long pull on his cigar, tilted his head back and blew the smoke above him, where it was lost to the dank, stale air.
Finally, he tossed the remains of his cigar to the floor, crushed the ember with the heel of his shoe, and placed his hands inside the deep pockets of his sheepskin jacket.
“Who the bleeding hell are you?”
The first punch connected with Tyler’s nose, smarting his eyes. The second found his kidney, followed by a third that broke through Tyler’s guard and glimpsed his brow. In an instant, the warm sting of blood found the corner of his eye. Tyler jumped back, maintaining his guard, and worked the mix of tears and blood from his sight with rapid blinks of his eye.
“Can you see her, Tyler?” said the man. “Can you see her doubled over in pain, clawing at the door for someone to help?”
Tyler launched an attack. A quick succession of body blows were all blocked, and a final hook to the man’s head fell short by a whisker as he dodged back.
“But there’s no-one to help her, Tyler,” he continued.
Then the man dodged and weaved a series of head blows. The final jab connected square on and sent him reeling back. But he recovered and came at Tyler with a relentless succession of kicks and punches that forced Tyler back against the tiled cubicle where, long ago, livestock would have been dragged and bolted and strung up to drain.
No matter where Tyler guarded, the blows landed elsewhere. Rock hard fists, delivered with precision and power, slammed into Tyler’s body with tiresome energy, until the man was so absorbed in his rhythm and breathing that he got close enough for Tyler to open his arms wide and smash his massive forehead into the man’s face.
He stumbled back, but the reprisal was brief. Within two seconds, he was ready to fight again, his mouth running with blood.
“Is that it, Tyler? Your poor old mum is banging on the door, begging for help, and all you can do is stand in the corner and take a beating.”
Tyler shoved off the wall.
“They’ll need to tie her down. You know that?”
With his shoulder set, Tyler charged at the man, but he side-stepped and delivered a kick to the back of Tyler’s head.
“They’ll be so bored of listening to her sobs and screams, she’ll be gagged and tied to the bed.”
Tyler charged again, but this time, the man didn’t side-step. He stood his ground, coiled and greeted the charge with a powerful uppercut that rocked Tyler’s brain. Tyler stumbled then dropped to a knee to steady himself.
‘Control it,’ Harvey’s calm voice came to him.
He ducked a sidekick. The man’s leg passed over his head and Tyler reached up, catching it in the crook of his left arm. Instinct took over and he stood, kicking out at the man’s legs and sweeping him off his remaining foot.
The man went down but Tyler still had his leg. He began to twist, fending off futile kicks until the man rolled with the twist and lay on his front. Tyler placed a huge foot on the back of his neck and bent his leg up towards his head until the man’s body arched to its maximum stretch.
Three slaps of the man’s hand on the floor and Tyler released him. He turned and walked towards the bench where the phone lay waiting. His mum would be suffering just a call away.
“Where do you think you’re going, big fella?”
Tyler stopped and turned, and a hard jab found its mark on his face.
“You haven’t earned that yet.”
“I got you down,” said Tyler, blinking away the throb of the punch.
“And I got back up again,” the man replied. “If you want to survive this fight, you’ll need to do better than that.”
The man’s smaller size seemed to have no bearing on his confidence. He began to dance around, hopping from foot to foot.
Tyler raised his guard.
“Jerry,” said the man, and offered Tyler a smile.
“Jerry?” replied Tyler. He planted his feet and met the man’s eyes while his brain focused on his arms and legs.
“My name,” the man replied. “That’s all you earned. I was told you can fight, but all I’ve seen so far is a big, muscle-head cry-baby who misses his mum. This time, we fight for real. No tapping out. No going easy. I want you to hurt me. I want you to pick up that phone with pride and tell John Cooper to feed your mum those painkillers. So hit me.”
Tyler didn’t move.
“I said hit me, you big dumb idiot.”
‘Use it.’
“Fight me,” said Jerry. His smug face dropped as frustration set in. “Hit me. Or I’ll call John myself and tell him to strip your mum naked and send the boys into her room.”
‘Control it.’
“Are you retarded? Hit me.”
‘Use it.’
The first jab was easily dodged with a duck of Tyler’s head and he responded with a hook that found Jerry’s jaw. But the punch hadn’t perturbed Tyler’s aggressor. He retaliated with a hook that Tyler ducked back to avoid, then delivered his own that found its mark.
Seeming to take delight in the volley of punches, Jerry launched into a frenzy of failed attacks with Tyler managing to duck or block each one with a new-found calm composure. The few hits that he did take didn’t hurt but only seemed to strengthen his resolve. Even when Jerry slipped a few wild kicks at Tyler, he absorbed them and replied with his own, which were more powerful.
The volley grew in intensity when Jerry’s punch cracked Tyler’s jaw. Moments later, Tyler smashed Jerry’s nose and the two men entered into a rhythm of punches and kicks, neither blocking nor dodging but matching each other one for one.
The only difference between the two men was that with each blow Tyler landed, the control over Jerry’s rage weakened and each punch he replied with grew in anger. But Tyler had found a state of emotionless calm. He could read Jerry’s next move by watching the way his body leaned or catching the flick of his eye to its target. Jerry’s rage grew to a point where he dropped his guard to coil for a punch. Tyler’s hand shot out, grabbing his throat and squeezing hard.
Jerry fought back. The volley was over and he pounded Tyler with both arms, each punch easily absorbed with the resilience of a rock. Tyler tensed, gripped harder than before and lifted Jerry from his feet. The punches turned to kicks as Jerry tried to pry Tyler’s hands from his throat, lashing out at whatever target his feet could find.
But it was too late. Tyler’s left hand found the waistband of Jerry’s loose sweatpants. He took a long deep breath, then raised the smaller man above his head, kicking and flailing.
A stream of abuse aimed at Tyler’s mother began to run free from Jerry’s spiteful mouth, but the sound was a distant noise, irrelevant and unfathomable.
‘Use it.’
Tyler arched his back, sending all the energy he could muster into his huge, broad shoulders, then with the power coursing through his body, he slammed Jerry down onto the hard, concrete floor.
12
Prize Fighter
“Take her pain away,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.
John recognised the number, but the confidence in the voice was new.
“I knew you had it in you, Tyler.”
“I want to talk to her.”
“All in good time,” said John.
“I want her taken care of.”
“You’re in no position to make demands, Tyler. I told you to trust me. Do you?”
“You have to earn trust,” replied Tyler.
“How ready are you?” asked John, leading the conversation towards the big fight.
“My mother, look after her or I won’t be fighting.”
The call disconnected. The doors of the pub opened up onto a cold and miserable morning. A car drove past with a swish as its tyres cut through the surface of water and the car’s rear lights reflected, fr
agmented and multiplied in the road.
John stepped across the street, mindful of ruining his shoes in the deep water, then turned and looked back at the Golden Ring. The building was symmetrical with two windows, a door, and a patch of mismatched brickwork that betrayed the old off-license window, where the landlord would have served thirsty customers during the forced out-of-hours periods. The window had been bricked up long before John had taken on the pub.
The lights on the top floor of the house were all off, except for John’s office at the front and the small spare bedroom at the back where the boy’s mum was likely lying in a pool of her own pain-filled tears. He’d ask one the staff to take her a painkiller when they arrived.
The car park to the right-hand side of the old building was empty. John’s Range Rover was parked around the back behind locked gates. He pictured how it might look that evening. Instead of the usual vans, hatchbacks and boring, cheap family wagons, the car park would be filled with the finest selection of cars that ever graced its tarmac. Tonight would be the night to forge alliances. Nothing formal, but a display of wealth and power would go a long way with the men that he’d invited. When the time was right, he’d have men to call upon. Behind the scenes and buried in the facades of conversation, the evening would host a plethora of back scratching. The time to stand out was now. The time to be recognised was now. The time to sow the seeds that would see John rise up was now.
The night needed to go without a hitch.
The headlights of an approaching car turned into the road a few hundred yards away. In the dawn light, John couldn’t make out the model so he stepped back out of sight until it reached him, slowed then pulled into the car park. Mick climbed out carrying two coffees in takeaway cups. He shut the door with his foot and hit the fob to lock the car. The indicators flashed once and the interior light faded to nothing. Mick was John’s best man. He was reliable, loyal, and as tough as they come. Plus, he had brains, a trait that rarely went hand in hand with brawn.
Keeping to the shadows, John watched as Mick approached the pub with furtive glances at his surroundings. He saw John, checked the street both ways, and crossed over to join him, handing him a coffee. Mick let a few seconds pass before speaking, apparently gauging John’s mood at Nobby and Jack’s cock-up.
“Big night tonight, John,” he said.
“It’ll be big alright, Mick.”
“I heard about Nobby and Jack,” said Mick. “I didn’t give the order, but I take responsibility. I obviously wasn’t clear enough.”
John glanced to his side. Mick was looking at the pub, his face strong. His eyes showed no sign of fear.
“Jack’s a liability, Mick,” replied John. “Even if we get through this tonight, he’ll still be a problem.”
Knowing that Mick would understand the underlying tones and find a way of getting rid of Jack, John turned back to look at his pub, leaving Mick to ponder on a solution. He was good at solutions.
“Do you think the other firms will go for it?” asked Mick. “I mean, word from you would be one thing, but spreading a rumour that Dixon killed the old man, well, who would believe them?”
John smiled.
“That’s the game, Mick. All this might even work in our favour and nothing pleases me more than profiting from disaster.”
John took a sip of his coffee. The steam fogged his glasses. He licked his lips, cleared his throat, and let his lenses clear.
“If I were to contact the other firms,” began John, “and tell them it was Dixon that had the old man taken out in an effort to upset my fighter enough to lose the fight, I would have to go to the top dogs. The big boys, Mick. And I would have to stand there and tell them a bare-faced lie. Should, in the yet unforeseen turn of events, it be discovered that it was indeed my boys that took him out, then that lie, alongside the murder of one of London’s most-loved men would see me buried alive. Probably in the same hole as you, Nobby and Jack.”
Mick nodded.
“However,” said John, “if Jack and Nobby were to shoot their mouths off in a bar, and just happened to be overheard by some keen and green upstart that worked for one of the other firms, then if and when the time came for me to defend my position, I would have told no lies.”
“You’d still be killed, John. We all would.”
“With honour, Mick. With honour,” replied John. “And with any luck, I’d be buried in a different hole to the fool.”
Mick gave a small laugh and a short exhale through his nose, then took a long sip of his coffee.
“How do you think it’ll play out?” asked Mick.
“They’ll wait. The firms will want to see the fight. Everyone’s talking about it, you know?”
“Yeah, I hear.”
“They’ll all have wagers. The Robinsons will have wagers with the McIntyres. The MacIntyres will have wagers with the West London firms. And the paddies will be balls deep with the lot of them. Nothing will happen until one of our boys is lying in a pool of his own blood. Pockets will be fuller, smiles will be wider and the bubbly will be flowing. That’s when it’ll happen, Mick.”
Mick nodded his head in agreement. “We need to be ready.”
It was John’s turn to issue a half-hearted laugh. “Listen, Mick. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this game, it’s that the man with the biggest pair of balls doesn’t always win. Nor is it the man with the biggest brain on his shoulders. You need to have both. You need balls of steel and you need to be smarter than anyone else. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist, just smarter than the men you’re up against. Did you ever hear about the guys in Africa? One of them asks the other what he’d do if a lion came, and he said, run.”
“You can’t outrun a lion,” said Mick.
“That’s what the other guy said. And the first guy replied, I know, I’d just have to outrun you. That’s the point, Mick, you don’t need to be faster than the lion. You just need to be faster than the blokes you’re with.”
John took a sip of his coffee, pleased with his analogy, and let his glasses de-mist.
“So do you reckon the other firms will go for it then, John?” asked Mick. “Like I said, we need to be ready if they don’t.”
John smiled. It was a question he’d thought about all night, lying awake in bed listening to the crying of the boy’s mum a few rooms away.
“If it happens, Mick, there’ll be absolutely nothing we can do about it. It’s too late to cancel now, and besides, it would make us look guilty. We’d need more than a hundred men, which we don’t have. We’d need firepower, which we don’t have enough of. And we’d need friends to get us out, which at this point, we wouldn’t have at all. If they don’t fall for it, and all fingers point at us, the best thing we can do is take it like men. I’m not going down like a coward, Mick. If it comes to it, I’ll stand there and tell them all it was us, and tell them to do their worst. In years to come, they’ll be talking about me with a degree of respect. If we run, we’ll just be another firm that came and didn’t have the balls to see it through.”
“The way I see it, we both have a common enemy,” said Harvey.
He walked beside Del Dixon along London’s River Thames. Although Harvey had grown up in East London, the south side offered a far better view of the city that even he couldn’t deny.
“So you want my help to get at John Cooper?” said Dixon. “You killed one of my men and walked into my manor, bold as brass, and you’ve got the audacity to ask for my help.”
“It’s you that needs my help,” said Harvey. “And I killed a man who attacked me. It was him or me, and I’m not in the habit of asking who someone is before they slot me.”
“Well, perhaps you bleeding well should next time,” replied Dixon. “You don’t know who you might upset.”
Harvey didn’t reply.
“What’s he done to you anyway?” asked Dixon. “Why do you want to get at John Cooper?”
“Does it matter?” said Harvey. He stopped to lean on the
iron handrail that ran alongside the pathway. The river flowed past, fast with the morning tide.
Dixon joined him and leaned on the railings. The body language wasn’t threatening, but Harvey could see the older man trying to maintain the upper hand.
“As it happens, yes, it does matter,” said Dixon. “When a man I never clapped eyes on before kills one of my best men, then forces the other one at knife point to bring him to me, it raises eyebrows. In particular, my eyebrows. Can you see them? My eyebrows. They’re raised, are they not?”
Harvey gave him a brief glance, then turned back to the river.
“I’d say so,” he said.
“Right. So when my eyebrows are raised,” continued Dixon, “it is not a good sign for the man that raised them.”
“So take care of me,” said Harvey. “We’re standing by the river. All it would take would be for you to shoot me and throw my body over the side. Why don’t you?”
“Are you bleeding mental?” said Dixon. “You’re either extremely stupid or extremely brave. Which is it?”
“Why don’t you shoot me and throw me in the river?” said Harvey. “You’ll soon know.”
Dixon shook his head in disbelief.
“So?” said Dixon.
“So what?”
“So it does matter. It matters why you want to get at John Cooper. Of course it matters. Everything matters. For all I know, he sent you here.”
“He killed a friend of mine,” said Harvey.
“And who was your friend?”
“That doesn’t matter,” replied Harvey. “What matters is the fire he started last night.”
“Fire? What fire?”
Harvey checked Dixon’s expression with a sideways flick of his eyes. He genuinely wasn’t aware of any fire.
“Well, if you don’t know by now, I’m pretty sure you’re about to find out,” said Harvey.
“Don’t play games with me, sunshine. You’ve pushed your luck too far already. What fire?”
“Do you know the gym in the arches in Poplar?”
“In Poplar?” said Dixon. “You mean Old Man McGee’s place?”