Faces

by Martina Cole

  Denis came over to the table and placed another two coffees in front of them; pulling out a chair noisily he sat down. It was gone midnight and there was a lull in customers. Leaning on the table he said easily, ‘Hey, Danny, I hear you can shift stuff.’

  Danny shrugged nonchalantly. ‘So?’

  ‘I am going to Cyprus for one month. My Cypriot wife is having a baby and I must go there. May she have a boy this time, please God. Marianna will run this place for me with her sister, but I need someone to keep my regular customers supplied. You know what I mean, yeah?’ He winked at the two boys.

  Danny knew what he meant, all right, his smile said it all.

  ‘It’s only for a short while, and you’d be well paid for it. So, what do you say?’

  Michael watched as Danny processed the information, then he said quietly, ‘How much will we get?’

  ‘A oner, payable when I get back.’

  Michael frowned then, and Danny smiled as he heard the outrage in his friend’s voice. ‘How many people you talking about us supplying for you, Denis? How much do they want, how often do they want it and how much running about does this all involve?’

  Danny shrugged then, his eyes hard. ‘Well, answer him then, Denis. He ain’t called the human abacus for nothing, is he?’

  Denis was surprised at all the questions, but brought out a small, dog-eared notebook from his trouser pocket and threw it onto the table. Michael picked it up and quickly scanned the pages, working out the economics of the deal.

  ‘What is he doing, Danny?’

  Denis was now nervous: Michael had not been a part of the equation. He had heard nothing about him at all.

  Danny sighed heavily. ‘He’s working it all out, mate, that’s what he does, see? It’s what’s called his forte. Look and learn, because if you ain’t earning to your full potential, or you’re trying to rip us off, this little fucker will know.’

  Denis didn’t answer and Danny went silent while his friend worked out the possible returns they could expect from their new friend’s business. Finally, after fifteen minutes, he politely handed the notebook back to Denis.

  ‘So. What do you think, Mike?’ Danny sounded bored, without an interest in any of it.

  Michael shook his head slowly. ‘Not worth the aggro really, Dan. A oner a week each, then maybe . . . We’d have to do drops all over the Smoke and, as we don’t drive, and as we’re not car thieves, it will mean a lot of public transport. Given the time this would take, then combine that with the risk factor and we couldn’t do it for any less than a oner each a week for the duration. That will be four hundred a month, times two.’

  Denis was laughing his head off at these two young men; he knew Danny was sound as a pound, he had asked around for a while and it was this boy’s name that kept cropping up. But, watching them like this, working out the pros and cons was as ludicrous as it was hilarious. Marianna’s brother would do it much cheaper, but he would serve every one of his customers up light, causing them to look elsewhere. He was also looking to keep it out of his English wife’s family’s hands. This boy, this Danny Cadogan, was already working for the Murrays, among others.

  ‘We also want a cut off each person we weigh out. You are on the trot, we will look out for your end. We won’t offer anyone an in, or shout your rout about: you have my word on that.’

  Denis knew this would cost, but he also knew he wouldn’t lose anyone. Once he returned they would fade back into the woodwork. It was a win-win situation, and he knew it. ‘You’ve got a deal.’

  ‘Half the money upfront, and the rest on completion.’

  Michael was serious as he said that and laughing uncontrollably at his front, Denis held out a meaty paw and the boys shook hands with him.

  ‘You two are fucking funny. Come in tomorrow night and I’ll walk you through it all, OK? Anything you want, boys, it’s on the house . . .’

  He was laughing as he left them, but he also guessed that one day they would be his superiors. Danny, anyway. He was on the road to perdition, the road to riches, the road to his own personal hell. Denis could see that this was a boy who would need careful handling in the years to come, and woe betide anyone who didn’t have the sense to work that one out.

  Danny and Michael looked at each other for a few moments before Danny said, ‘Well done, Mike. You have a gift for working out fractions, don’t you? Well, for that, you can skank a third of the action, fair enough?’

  Michael nodded happily, it was a third more than he had expected. He would have done it for nothing. He knew that the weekly wage he had astutely commanded for himself from the Greek would be taken over and a percentage given back to him.

  But Danny knew that Michael would be worth his weight in gold when any future deals were going down. He was a fucking diamond, and he had his best interests at heart. Danny would gather the work in and Michael could work the earn out. They were a good team, had been best mates since they were little kids, and Danny knew he could trust him. And, in this new, grown-up world they were entering, that was more important to him than anything else.

  Big Dan was in the kitchen, an empty mug in front of him, the radio playing Del Shannon gently in the background. He was waiting for his son to come home. He was stiff and aching, the tiredness that was now his constant companion was threatening to overtake him. He would never fully recover from what had happened to him, physically or mentally, but he was feeling stronger as each day passed. But the urge to gamble, have a little flutter, was overpowering sometimes. It made him edgy as he imagined the time being wasted, sitting in this fucking flat, when he could be out playing cards with his cronies, or smoothing out his frayed edges with a few stiff drinks and a close encounter with a bit of strange.

  His wife had driven him mad over the years; the harder their lives had got, the easier it had become to find reasons for not going home. And seeing Ange out working that first time had just proved to him that they could get by without him. The feeling of suffocation his wife and children brought to him at times made his drunken absences almost necessary. He knew that he had been kidding himself for years and that his son’s hatred of him was justified. He could even understand his elder boy’s actions over the six hundred pounds owed. When he thought of that amount now, sober as a judge and with a clear-headedness that he had last experienced over fifteen years before, he could see what he had become.

  But, even knowing that, and accepting his part in the whole sorry saga, he couldn’t stay in this house a moment longer if his son didn’t make the atmosphere easier. For Ange and his younger brother and sister and, ultimately, for him.

  Sober and contrite, he had seen the disarray he had caused in his family’s life; he had seen it with a clarity that had brought back memories of his own childhood and his own father’s neglect. He had bullied his father at the end, sensing his weakness and going in for the kill, much as his own son was doing to him now. Now he knew that, without a doubt, the sins of the fathers were visited on the children even unto the third and fourth generations.

  God help the poor bitch who landed his elder son. He would end up torturing her, but all the while he would really be torturing himself. It was as if his own father had been reincarnated as his namesake. He had hated him all his life, and then, somehow, he had turned into him. Now his son hated him in the same way he had hated his own father. His old man, another Danny Cadogan, would have loved this. His mother though, had not had even a shred of loyalty in her bones. She walked away from them all without a backward glance. Gone for weeks or months on one of her benders when life got too much for her. Whereas his poor old Ange, God love her, had far too much loyalty for her own good. Especially where he was concerned.

  Danny was staring down at the twisted body of his once proud father. His mother was beside him, her eyes frightened, as they always were when she looked at him these days. ‘Leave him, let him sleep, son. You get away to your bed and leave me to deal with him.’

  Danny watched his father wake
up and slowly take in his surroundings. He looked old, old and haggard, and he wondered why this didn’t bother him at all. But then, considering the beatings he had taken off him over the years, coupled with the scams, the lies and the mental abuse, he supposed that was just natural. He would never forgive his father for the sheer hatred that he had engendered in his young body. For the humiliation he had heaped on them all because he had gambled their daily bread without a second’s thought for the consequences. His father was, without doubt, a worthless cunt, a useless wanker. And he loathed him.

  His mother had become a bundle of nerves though, and this irritated him as much as it upset him. She was always trying to keep the peace lately, trying to make them get on. She’d start off wanting them to hate him, which they did, then wanting them to forgive him, which they couldn’t. Standing there in her old nightie and her overlarge dressing gown, she looked much older than her years. But then she always had done, and it was all down to this man: her husband.

  ‘Go to bed, Mum, will you.’

  Ange heard the flat tone her son used when he was near his father, knew it was meant as an insult to him, and knew it was taken as one.

  She opened her mouth to speak once more. She was unsure how to deal with the situation, knowing her husband was at the end of his tether.

  ‘Go to bed, Mum, for fuck’s sake. And stay there.’ Danny grabbed her by the elbow then, and escorted her none too gently from the confines of her kitchen, and she didn’t try to stop him. There was something in his voice, in his demeanour, that put paid to any kind of reaction on her part.

  As he opened her bedroom door to push her inside he whispered, ‘Do me a favour, Mum, just for once keep out of it.’ He closed the door behind her, firmly, and with a finality that communicated itself to everyone in the house.

  His father watched him warily as he came back into the room, the flat was too small to keep anything a secret. He had come to see that all the arguments and fights over the years had been heard by not just his own family, but by everyone else in the near vicinity. Being sober and sensible was a harsh judgement on a man.

  Danny looked down on his father, the big man who was suddenly nothing more than a crumpled wreck. Any fear that he had felt was long gone, all that remained was hate.

  Big Dan was once more in charge of his emotions, remembered that he had a mission of sorts. ‘This can’t go on, Danny Boy. It’s not doing anyone any good.’

  He saw his son smile, and he looked so like himself it was uncanny. He could see himself at the same age, strong in mind and body. Saw what should have been, could have been. And was reminded of the life he had wasted, until finally, after years of being so drunk, so fucking out of it, that he had finally arrived at this moment, this awful, awkward, fucking terrible, embarrassing moment and he had not even seen it coming.

  ‘What, and you think that I ain’t sussed that out for meself?’ Danny Boy grinned, his strong white teeth reminding his father once more of what he had lost over the years, not just physically but mentally. He was a shadow of his former self, a caricature of the man who had fathered three children and who didn’t even know them or anything about them.

  Until now, that had not bothered him one iota. ‘Seriously, son. We have to—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Danny shook his head slowly. His eyes were without emotion, something people didn’t notice until too late; his smile was usually enough for most people. Like all good-looking mortals he got away with murder. He interrupted his father with a force that shocked them both. ‘I ain’t your fucking son, me mother’s son maybe, but you are fuck all to me.’

  ‘I’m your father no matter what you might wish and, believe me, son, that ain’t something I’d broadcast to the world. But, this ain’t about us, son, it’s about them.’ He pointed towards the hallway with a gnarled, smoke-stained finger and his righteousness and bitterness amazed them both.

  ‘You’ve got some fucking front.’

  ‘More front than Brighton, me son, something you seem to have inherited, whether you like it or not. But this stops now, you lairy little fucker. I’ll go, leave, if that’s what you want, but I’ll go because I choose to, and not because you drove me out.’

  Danny Boy looked down on the man who had fathered him and said, seriously now, ‘That was for me mother’s benefit, I assume.’

  Big Dan Cadogan smirked and, hunching his shoulders up while holding out his arms in a gesture of friendliness, he said seriously, ‘I’ll walk, son. I’ll go.’

  Danny Boy aped him, hunching his own shoulders and opening his own arms out wide, he bellowed, ‘Oh! Hark at you, the big I am or, as we prefer to think of you, Dad, the big fucking I ain’t. Because you’re nothing, mate, a big zero, the only thing keeping you under this roof is me mother and, like you, she’s fucked herself.’

  ‘You love the bones of that woman, and you know it.’

  ‘Do I? I wonder about that lately. Now, sit back down and shut up while I give you some advice. Advice I would take on board if I was you, because you are finished as far as I am concerned. This is my gaff now and you’d better remember that.’

  Chapter Six

  Big Danny wasn’t sure how to react to his son any more. He looked at the boy who had grown up under the guidance of his haphazard parenting. The boy who he knew had every right to hate him, the boy he was sorry he hadn’t bothered to get to know because he seemed like someone who would make his mark. The same boy who had seen fit to cripple his own father without a speck of remorse, and he knew that it was too late to do anything about it, to lessen this boy’s hatred and anger. He shook his head slowly.

  ‘I don’t expect anything from you, no more than you would from me. But listen, son, I fucking well ain’t sitting around letting you dictate to me. I would rather sleep in the gutter.’ It was said with real meaning, emotion. It was also said far too late, and they both knew that.

  Danny sat down opposite his father and lit himself a cigarette. Meanwhile, Big Dan’s courage was deserting him by the second, and he was overwhelmed with guilt at the realisation of what he had inadvertently created and unleashed onto the world. He knew now that this boy of his was devoid of any real human emotion. He was a cold and callous young lad who cared for no one, and talking to him was pointless. He reminded him of himself.

  ‘The gutter is somewhere I think you are far more acquainted with than I am, Dad.’

  It was an honest statement and it hurt. Big Dan saw himself, and the picture was terrifying; he was too far gone in life to be able to answer for his mistakes. But, that aside, his son bothered him enough to make him listen to his advice.

  ‘Do you see yourself now, Danny Boy?’ He was going to try to make this boy listen to him and understand what he could teach him. What he could help him with, in their world, their dangerous world. ‘Well, sonny, I’ve got news for you. You are me, mate, you are like the spit out of my mouth and, do you know what scares me most? I’m a pisshead, a gambler, a fucking nonsense, but what’s your excuse, eh?’

  He laughed then, and it was a deep, full belly-laugh. ‘Oh I’m going, son. I’ll get out of your fucking way, don’t worry. You can have them, the whole fucking tribe. But remember this: one day this will be you sitting here. I’m your future and, like me, you’ll be hated by the people who should love you the most. I hoped you might listen to what I had to say, but you’ll never listen to anyone, will you? Mr Know-it-all. You’re a cunt, like I am, and my father was before me. I just want you to do me one favour, right?’

  He sighed then, heavily, as if it was all too much for him, which it was. ‘Look out for this lot, will you? Because I won’t. I’ve naused it up, just like you will. But try, like I tried, to make it all right. It’s harder than it looks.’

  Danny saw his father then, saw him as he always had, taking the easy way out. Passing the buck, forwarding his responsibilities onto the nearest mark. He smiled himself then, his father’s double, forcing himself to keep calm, to stop himself from ripping the
man to pieces. He needed him at this time, he needed his knowledge and his acumen. ‘Shut the fuck up, you ponce, and listen. Before you walk away from us once more, answer me this one question.’

  ‘What fucking question is that then? Why should I fucking do anything for you, eh?’ And he laughed again, a spiteful, nasty laugh.

  ‘Because if you don’t, Dad, I’ll fucking kill you. And that is not an idle threat. I’m just waiting for you to give me an excuse to take you out of the game once and for all. You have to prove to me that you have something I need, something I want. If you can’t do that much . . .’ He left the sentence unfinished, knowing his father was more than aware of what he was really trying to say. He was offering him an out; now it was about whether or not he chose to take it. The atmosphere was heavy with suppressed violence, both knew that one wrong word was all that was needed to herald a bloodbath of Olympian standards. Danny Boy was just looking for an excuse to lose it big time.

  Big Dan Cadogan looked at his son, and knew that he must be in dire need to request his expert opinion. It was a chance to redeem himself, and he was happy to take it.

  ‘What do you want to know then?’

  ‘Can I, or can I not, trust Louie Stein?’

  Big Dan sighed. His shock at the question threw him, making him wonder what had brought it about in the first place. The question had actually piqued his interest. Something that had never happened before. Suddenly Big Dan wanted to know what was going on; he missed being on the front line, knowing what the buzz on the pavement was. ‘Trust the Jew over who?’

  Danny Boy smiled lazily. He knew his father had finally sussed out his quandary and now wanted to know who else might be in the frame. ‘Who do you fucking think?’

  Big Dan sat back in his chair, knowing that his answer had to be as truthful and as honest as possible if he wanted to help this son of his. Which, despite the boy’s arrogance, he suddenly found that he did want to help him. Really wanted to help him, for no other reason than that he cared. This shocked him even more than it would have done his son, if he had known.