Queen of Green (Queen of Green Trilogy Book 1)

by V E Rooney

  “Can I open this now?”

  “Course you can, you daft bint.”

  I tear off the top of the envelope and look inside. Three thick wads of £50 notes. There must be at least £3,000 in there. I’m so surprised all I can say is: “Wow. Nice one. So does this mean that whatever I owe you is settled now? I’m no longer in debt?”

  “I reckon you’ve paid for yourself many times over, girl. You’ve kept things running for me when I haven’t been around, kept the product moving, kept things in order. Even brought me new customers with that weed of yours. Punters can’t get enough of it.”

  He gets up from the sofa and walks over to a wooden cabinet near to the trophy cabinet. It’s a mini-fridge. He opens it, pulls out another bottle of lager and slams the top off using the edge of the cabinet. He sits back down on the sofa, taking a large swig.

  “Do you know how hard it is to find reliable people in this game? People with a bit of brains about them? I can click my fingers and get a gang of hard cases together like that,” he says, clicking his fingers. “But things are changing, and changing fast. Back in the day, it was all robberies, bank jobs, shop jobs, jobs that needed crowbars and hammers. That kind of lark attracts all the nutters and the psychos, exactly the kind of people I don’t want. You know the kind of game I’m in and the risks involved,” he says, staring at me. “Stakes are getting higher, girl. The game’s getting harder. And big stakes attract the wrong kind of interest from the wrong people. Not just the busies, but other crews wanting to barge in and take over. Thing is, Ali, when I say business is taking off big time, I mean it. And that means I need the right kind of people around me.”

  I know exactly what he means and I can see it unfolding in front of me on a daily basis. Crowbars and hammers are giving way to shotguns and explosives. Bone-headed muscled-up gorillas are making way for accountants and lawyers. Robbers are being replaced by businessmen. Bags of cash under the floorboards are being transformed into offshore bank accounts, untraceable assets and money transfers which can be moved around the globe and out of sight of the authorities with the click of a mouse. Yeah, the grunt work in getting the product moved and distributed pretty much remains the same on the ground, but drug dealing and distribution enterprises are being run more like multinational corporations these days, with different layers of management, with different teams in different countries all performing their own functions. The times are changing and the people involved need to change with them, to reflect the globalised, sophisticated and intertwined nature of drug dealing in the 20th century.

  He leans forward and stares at me for a few moments before speaking.

  “I need someone who can be trusted. Someone who values loyalty. Someone who knows when to talk and when to shut up. Someone who can chat shit with a bouncer and schmooze with a banker. Someone who can spot an opportunity and smell a set-up. I need someone who knows when to run and when to fight. Someone who knows how to make money and how to keep it out of sight.”

  I ponder this for a few moments of my own. “Looks like I’m the girl of your dreams,” I say as I chuck my envelope of cash back at Sean’s head, startling him.

  “Do that again and I’ll fucking slap you myself,” he says, wagging his finger at me but I can see he’s trying to stifle one of his smirks. “So? Are you up for it?”

  “Show me what you’ve got,” I say, smirking back at him.

  “Don’t you worry, girl, I’ve got plenty for you to be getting on with. Anyway, I need to go and mingle. Off you go.”

  I stand up to leave, picking up my wad of cash from the sofa beside Sean.

  “One more thing, Ali.”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “That contact of yours down south.”

  For a moment, I am confused. And then it clicks into place. The real reason why I’m here tonight.

  “Posh lad? Simon?”

  “Yeah. Get him up here. I want to meet him.”

  There it is. I didn’t see that one coming. Although my ego is deflated a little bit, I can sense that my prospects have just become brighter. Sean has welcomed me into his inner circle, and that means bigger and better jobs. More money. I have to give credit to Sean, he knows how to hook people and reel them in. He cracks open the door of his empire just wide enough for you to want to see the whole thing. And that is when he really owns you.

  As midnight passes and the party shows no signs of slowing up, I make chit-chat with some of the other guests, observe the full-on pool orgy now taking place outside and let the boys know that I’ll be heading off in a taxi as I have an early start tomorrow. Ste, Brian and John are by now so bombed off their faces that I doubt they’ll even remember my name, so I leave them to it.

  On my way through the house, I decide to say a quick goodbye to Sean. I can’t see him in the main areas of the house so I go to the games room. I go to enter but I stop outside the slightly open door when I hear the shouts, the grunts and the moans. Through the gap in the door, I can see four naked women lying face-down on the snooker table, being fucked from behind by Sean, Paul, Lee and another fella. I sneak away without being noticed, step outside and into the taxi to take me home.

  Never forget, Ali. This is a man’s world.

  23. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

  As it happens, Simon is on holiday in Thailand until the end of March, which means Sean will have to wait for another month to make his acquaintance. In the meantime, Sean has given me a bona fide full-time task to get my teeth into, by appointing me the project manager for his latest venture, a new nightclub situated near a car park on Eberle Street in the city centre. He’s bought a derelict warehouse and is refurbishing the whole place.

  “I’m gonna call it Taylor’s,” he says, beaming with excitement as he surveys my flat. Or rather, his flat off Wood Street which he is lending to me. I have decided to bow to his suggestion to become more central, leaving John and Brian in charge of the Kirkby farm. They are getting paid well from the burgeoning profits of our operation and they have received a talking-to from both Sean and myself as to what will happen to them if they fuck up.

  “Bit of a boring name for a nightclub,” I say, distinctly unimpressed.

  “It’s after Elizabeth Taylor. You know, gay icon.” He says this with such a matter-of-fact air that I’m not sure if he’s fucking with me.

  “Gay icon? Something you want to tell me, Sean?”

  “Oi. Gay name for a gay club.”

  “A gay club? You? Is this a piss-take?”

  “Queers are rolling in it, girl, they’re always flashing their cash around. And queers are less likely to get into rucks, aren’t they. Don’t wanna mess up their quiffs. It makes perfect business sense. Do you know how many Scouse queers go over to Manchester and Blackpool for nights out, rather than stay in Liverpool?”

  I can’t fault his logic on that even if I wince at his usage of the word queer. Now, my knowledge of the gay scene is limited, but even I know that there isn’t much on offer for those that way inclined. On a few occasions during forays into the city centre, I have visited the two clubs and one pub that comprise Liverpool’s paltry gay scene.

  The mainstay is the Lisbon pub which has been around since the 1950s along with its décor which has remained resolutely chintzy and faithful to that time period. During the 1950s and 1960s, word got around town that it was a place where sailors danced backwards, nudge nudge, wink wink. It’s the place where everyone goes for a drink or five before the clubs get going. Situated on the corner of Victoria Street and Stanley Street, there are two small staircases, one on each side, leading down to the basement pub with high vaulted ceilings consisting of ornate plaster friezes and arches. Decades of cigarette smoke have given it a sickly yellow hue the colour of jaundice. Two rooms: the main area furnished with antiquated dark wooden furniture, the kind you’d see in your grandma’s house, with a few seated booths; and the smaller room holding the pool table. That’s the room where the lesbians tend to hang around, or more accurately,
have punch-ups over the pool table.

  Oi, were you flirting with my girlfriend?

  Me? I wouldn’t flirt with your girlfriend, she’s a fucking dog.

  You cheeky fucking cunt! Twat her, Tracey!

  Further down Victoria Street and round onto Temple Street is the Curzon Club. This is a small windowless bar populated mostly by old men and young rent boys. The entire décor, from floor to ceiling, is painted black with a long mirror hanging crooked off each wall. It’s like that gay club, the Blue Oyster, in the film Police Academy. Even the floor is painted black, not that you’d actually want to see it considering how sticky it is. It’s like walking on glue. Fuck knows how many layers of spit and spunk have accumulated on it over the years. I’ve never had the courage to go to the toilets in there.

  A few minutes’ walk away from the Curzon on North John Street is a basement club called Reflections, yet another windowless place where black paint and mirrors were the only options available in the gay club design catalogue. It’s a step up from the Curzon but that’s not saying much. There is a small dancefloor the size of a large dining room table on a raised level overlooking the bar, and the dancefloor has one of those coloured light floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, giving it the effect of a giant inside-out Rubik’s cube gone wrong. A few years back, Reflections achieved notoriety when Liverpool FC footballer Jan Molby was photographed visiting the place, resulting in LFC fans and fans of other clubs giving him the nickname “Janet”.

  But Taylor’s, with its two large dancefloors, expansive bars and seating areas, state-of-the-art sound systems and laser lighting rigs, is a giant leap forwards in style and sophistication for the Scouse gay scene. Or at least it will be once it’s kitted out and opened. Sean, in his wisdom, has decided that I am the perfect person to project-manage this process – sourcing supplies and equipment, sorting out wiring, plumbing and decorating, and recruiting staff until he gets an official full-time licensee and manager in place.

  I am pissed off because I would much rather concentrate on growing and dealing, and learning the ropes in Sean’s other business lines. I protest to him that I don’t know anything about clubs, much less fitting one out and opening it, but Sean points out that I set up my own manufacturing facility and front business to operate it. Again, I can’t fault his logic.

  Sean takes me to see the premises. This place hasn’t been used in at least 30 years and it shows. There are cobwebs the size of bedsheets hanging off the ceiling and walls. Empty wooden boxes which used to contain tea, foodstuffs and grain are smashed and scattered across the vast floor. The few windows in the place are covered in layers of dirt. The remnants of archaic water pipes and electrical wiring jut out of walls and floors, their ends frayed and withered. The metal overhangs and beams are rusted to the point of crumbling.

  This place needs to be completely gutted and fitted out again, which will be a challenge seeing as Sean wants me to kit out the club in eight weeks. “Do you want me to shove a brush up my arse and sweep the floor at the same time?” I ask incredulously.

  Sean’s go-to designer and decorator Alan turns up at the building to meet Sean and I, with Paul milling about in the background. Alan bounces up the stairs carrying two large textile sample books. Before Alan even opens his mouth, I know he’s as camp as a row of tents.

  “Hiya!” he shouts as he stops in front of us. “God, it’s roasting outside. I’m sweating like a whore in confession,” he says, fanning himself with his free hand.

  “Alan, Ali, Ali, Alan,” Sean says, giving the briefest of introductory gestures and standing back with that fucking smirk on his face. Alan is looking at me like I’m Judy Garland resurrected, eyes wide and mouth open, accompanied by a dramatic inhale of breath.

  “Oh, I’ve heard all about you, love!”

  Alan shoves the sample books onto a startled Paul, flings his arms around me and kisses me on both cheeks. Over Alan’s shoulder, I can see Sean’s smirk is getting bigger.

  Alan puts his arm around my shoulders and points at Sean. “Now, listen, don’t be letting Billy Big Bollocks here give you a hard time,” Alan says in the manner of a stern hospital matron. “Can’t tell you how relieved I am not to have to deal with those brutes he’s normally got trailing around after him. Honestly, love, men are such pigs,” he says, wrinkling his nose up at Paul.

  With that, Sean rolls his eyes. “I’ll leave you ladies to it,” he says to Alan and I. Paul thrusts the sample books back at Alan (getting a sarcastic air kiss from Alan in return) and Sean and Paul go down the stairs.

  Sean turns to me before he steps outside. “Business to attend to. I’ll check back in a few days.” Sean and Paul disappear into the fading afternoon sun, their shadows on the pavement outside elongating and thinning into nothing. For a moment I feel vulnerable, like a cub left to fend for itself in the wild as father keeps a watchful distance.

  But there’s no time to feel sorry for myself. Arm still clamped around my shoulders, Alan guides me towards the building’s entrance. “Now, listen, I’ve got this gorgeous violet leather trim I want you to look at…”

  Four days later and I’m in the midst of a maelstrom of drilling, hammering, sawing, soldering, the radio, bellicose male voices out-shouting each other over the din, and sweltering in this windowless room which will be the main bar and dancefloor. I try not to choke on plaster dust, wood shavings and paint fumes.

  I’m feeling the stress, especially because I’m on the phone to the bar fixture fuckwits trying to source some chrome pumps and handles, and the fuckers have kept me on hold for the past ten minutes, because apparently it’s difficult to get off their arses and actually go into their stockroom to check whether they’ve got them available.

  I’m leaning against a wall recess with the phone clamped to my ear, my eyes closed, teeth gritted when I hear: “Ali! Hello! Sleeping beauty? Hello?” I know just by listening to the exaggerated inflection in his voice that Alan is somewhere amongst the chaos. I twist my neck round to see Alan beckoning me with one hand and holding out his mobile phone to me in the other. “He who must be obeyed wants to speak to you.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Is it not enough that I’m already spending 16 hours a day in this shithole, managing everything and everyone and at risk of inhaling asbestos and getting tinnitus at Sean’s bequest? What the fuck is he going to give me earache over now? I snatch Alan’s mobile out of his hand without even looking at him but as I turn away I can see out of the corner of my eye that this gesture invokes an arched eyebrow and a pursing of the lips signalling his displeasure.

  “What?” I shout into the phone, more harshly than I meant to.

  “Charming. Status report.”

  “The sparkies are here, the plumbers are here, the carpenters are here. All I need is the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.”

  “Don’t get fucking sarky.”

  “It’s all in control, oh, except your mates at the bar fixtures place are giving me the run-around over those fucking chrome bar bits that Alan’s got a hard-on for. That Keith bastard has had me on hold for the last 15 minutes.”

  “Right. Tell Keith to pull his thumb out his arse and sort it out.”

  “Oh, I’ve told him more than that, but fat lot of fucking difference it makes.”

  “Tell him from me. Me, specifically. Tell him what I’ll do to him if he doesn’t. Right, listen. I’m still on business so I probably won’t be back until middle of next week. And if I don’t like what I see…”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll string me up by my tits, I get it, Sean. I’m working like a fucking Filipino slum kid here.”

  “Work harder.” With that, the line goes dead. Fucker. I hand the phone back to Alan.

  “Lover’s tiff?” he says coquettishly.

  “Get fucked,” I retort as I retreat into the rear bar room for a breather.

  “Chance’d be a fine thing, love,” he calls after me.

  Six weeks later and Taylor’s is completed, to everyone�
�s surprise, not least my own. The official launch night is not for another two weeks when the doors will be opening to the public for the first time, but tonight, Sean is having a celebration party inside the club. In attendance are most of the crew, bar the ones who have business to attend to. Ste, John and Brian are here along with Alan and an assortment of wives and girlfriends who are huddled in a corner by the bar and casting withering glances at me. They don’t know me but that’s not going to stop them despising me for being around their fellas, even though I’d rather sit on a cactus than any of their pricks.

  Also in attendance are a few blokes who seem a bit too formal and suited for the occasion, until Alan informs me that they work in the planning permission and alcohol licensing departments at Liverpool City Council. Sean does indeed have his fingers up many arseholes. The man himself is working the room, giving and receiving slaps on the back and handshakes and inside jokes. He’s beaming like a kid at Christmas.

  The chorus of voices dies down as Sean raises his arms above his head and shouts for attention. Almost immediately, as if by instinct, his audience forms a circle around him.

  “Now, lads. It was, what, six months ago when we first found this place, am I right? Look at it now. Ready ahead of time and under budget which is a fucking record in this business.”

  Murmurs of agreement and sycophantic chuckles.

  All of a sudden he turns and looks at me. “And that’s all down to this girl over here,” he says, sweeping his arm my way. All eyes are on me now, even the gaggle of bitches who were giving me dirty looks earlier. I feel my cheeks burn. “Lads and lasses, please raise your glasses for a toast to the newest member of our crew and also our resident horticultural expert, Ali. Nice one, Ali.”

  I get a chorus of “nice one, Ali” from everyone assembled, a hearty round of applause, shouts of encouragement, a sleazy “I wouldn’t mind seeing her bush” from one of the crew and a few slaps on my own back. I am officially one of the lads.