‘Take a seat Mick,’
He turned to pull the chair out and saw the hole in the wall, he walked out of the kitchen and then into the hallway, then he opened the living room door, swung it backwards and forwards and then tried to close it. He came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table. I put the tea in front of him.
‘Two sugars, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Mr Collins.’ I plopped two (expensively misshapen) sugar cubes into Mick’s mug and sat down.
‘So, Mick, I need you to do a little job, a little repair job.’
‘The holes here?’
‘Yeah, they’re a bit of a mess.’
‘Lucky it was just a pistol, Mr Collins, those shotguns make a terrible mess,’ said Mick turning towards the wall. ‘This’ll be a quick job, just a little plaster, maybe some webbing.’ Mick got up and went into the hallway, I followed. ‘But the door frame,’ Mick took scratched his cheek a bit, ‘it’s going to be quite hard to to fix, you know? We may have to put in a new bit of woodwork, it won’t shut at all, but it might be okay.’ He fingered the hole in the door itself and looked at the other side. ‘This we can fill in without a problem, but the bullet is going to have to stay in there.’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘If you don’t mind me asking, Dan, what the feck have you been doing?’
‘You don’t need to know, Mick.’ Mick looked at me for a while.
‘I knew your father, Dan…’
‘Well, he’s not here anymore.’ Mick sighed.
‘What business have you got yerself involved in?’
‘Mick, if you only knew the half of it you’d buy tickets for the other.’ Mick led me through to the kitchen and picked up his mug of tea and slurped noisily at it. He took out a small notebook and a biro and started working out a quote for the works. When he finished he turned the pad around so it faced me.
‘Is that about right Mr Collins?’ It was a lot of money, a huge amount of money for what was a simple bit of repair work.
‘Can you maybe round it down a bit?’ I asked.
‘No, I can’t, for your father’s sake I want you to get yerself out of whatever you and your brother are involved in, then we can come to an agreement.’
‘Mick, we can’t get out, Rich is being blackmailed.’
‘Who by?’ Asked Mick.
‘You wouldn’t know him, and that’s a good thing.’
‘Try me.’ Said Mick.
‘A guy called Barney Gibbons.’
‘Feck,’ said Mick. We sat in silence for a while.
‘So you know him then?’ I asked.
Mick nodded and slurped his tea. ‘I did a job a while back, but I didn’t know who is was but after I found out I never worked for him again.’
‘We unfortunately do not have that luxury. Rich, stupidly, borrowed some money off of him and – well, it’s a long story, but Barney has forced Rich and me to do a job for him.’
‘I never thought of you as a criminal,’ said Mick.
‘You and me both, but that’s the situation and we’re up to our neck in it.’
‘Are you going to do this job then,’ asked Mick.
‘Yeah, I guess…’ I scratched my chin for a bit, staring into space. Mick gave his tea a quick slurp and then left the kitchen and headed towards the front door. He left the door on the latch and pulled it shut behind him.
The problem with doing anything secret is that nothing stays secret for long. For one reason or another things have a habit of getting out. The reason Andy found out was pure chance and a little bit of professional curiosity. Steve found out because of my idiocy and Mick had found out, again, because of my idiocy. I’m going to have to keep tabs on my stupidity.
Mick came back in with a tool box and a circular sander. He opened the box pulled out and laid down a dust sheet, found himself a chisel - and after another quick rummage - a mallet and immediately started thwacking at the wall in an effortless way that only comes from doing something everyday. He stopped hitting the wall, blew it and then reached for another chisel and started going at the door frame. He picked up the sander, hunted for a plug, then popped it in a socket and gave the trigger a quick squeeze, like a chainsaw and started smoothing off the splints from the doorframe and door.
‘You’re going to get dust everywhere, maybe you should shut all the doors upstairs,’ said Mick. I nodded and hopped upstairs shutting doors as I went. I paused at Pat’s den. His computer blinked at me like an accomplice. I looked at it thinking that I could press control z and make all of this go away, like it was the computer’s fault, like it was a genie giving me wishes I didn’t ask for and that like a computer I could revert to saved, undo, reload, reboot.
I hung my head knowing that the skills of using computers, making presentations, writing briefs didn’t mean anything anymore, they had no more use for me; what my brother and I were about to undertake would need other skills. What skills though? Is this something that I put pass through the sieve of all the management training that I had received? Does being able to motivate and lead a team of creatives correlate to leading a gang of armed men (and women, I suppose. Maybe even Barney Gibbons has moved with the times and realised that there is room in the rent-a-thug world for the fairer sex) in a forceful enough way so as to scare the living shit out of everyone we encounter along the way?
I guess that’s why robbers wear ski masks, it makes them look terrifying, though I have never seen anyone – in all my years of annual ski holidays – seen a skier wearing a ski mask. I don’t even know if I have seen them on sale, I suppose that as well as the pay as you go mobiles that I have to get then I am going to have to buy a bunch of ski masks from...where?
‘How many of yous are on the job then?’ asked Mick from downstairs.
‘Just me and Rich so far…oh, and Steve – but I don’t want to get him involved.’
‘This Steve, can you trust him?’ asked Mick.
‘I guess…yeah, I can trust him, he’s salt of the earth.’ I said.
‘Maybe you should get him involved then.’
I stepped downstairs and sat at the bottom while Mick worked. ‘I don’t want him involved because this is bad enough as it is, I don’t want to get a friend locked up as well.’
‘Do you think that will happen?’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Get locked up?’ repeated Mick.
‘I hadn’t really thought of it…but yeah, I suppose we will.’
‘That’s no attitude to take, is it?’ said Mick.
‘What with Crimewatch and DNA fingerprinting and CCTV – we might as well get measured up for stripy uniforms.’
‘Hmpff,’ said Mick. He took out a tape measure, measured the door jamb and then passed me to go to, I suppose, his van. I plopped my head in my hands. Fuck, we were going to get caught. That’s something I am going to have to check: what is the jail term for armed robbery?
Mick came back in holding a piece of wood and a folded workbench. He leaned them against the wall and went out again coming back with an indeterminate power tool and case, which I guessed contained attachments for the indeterminate power tool. He lay these on the floor and turned to go again.
‘Mick you want a hand?’
“No, you’re grand as you are!’
‘I’ll just give you a hand shall I?’ I went out after Mick to his old beat-up van. I reckon that he drove a Mercedes at the weekend. He opened the door and handed me a small bag of stuff, which I guessed was plaster. He then gave me another bag and a trowel. Straining with the weight I watched as he locked the van and grinned at me. ‘You fucker, Mick…’ He laughed.
We started walking towards Pat’s and walking down the road was the neighbor. This place is like a fucking goldfish bowl. She gave the bags a once over. ‘You have the guiltiest face I have seen in a long time - trust me, I can read guilt quicker than a Catholic priest.’ Mick grabbed one of the bags and the trowel and scampered off up Pat’s front path.
�
��How are you?’ I said.
‘How are you? How are the ears?’ She said, mock concern on her face.
‘Grand, clear as a bell…’
‘So,’ she said pointing, ‘is this to do with the mysterious bangs coming from your house?’
‘No, not at all.’ I said.
‘So what’s all this then?’ she said.
‘Just had a bit of an accident, caused a bit of damage – nothing major, you know, but I am paying through the nose to make it like it never happened, you understand where I’m coming from?’
‘You don’t want Mr Sullivan to find out?’ she asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘What was the accident?’
‘Well, it was like this…that bang was,’ I thought quickly, ‘it was Pat’s new – brand new – laptop falling from the landing and smashing the lovely tiles in the hallway. I was clumsy and I am paying through the nose to make sure that he doesn’t notice a thing.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said.
‘I feel terrible, but if you could…’ I winced.
‘Of course, it’ll be our little secret.’ Oh goody.
‘Thank you,’ I said, touching her elbow. A bit of flirting always helped.
‘Bother,’ she said as her phone chirruped, ‘I’m late.’ She reddened and made her goodbyes.
I turned back to the house and headed upstairs and into Pat and Erica’s bedroom. I pulled open the built in wardrobe and looked for a baseball cap. I found a beanie, a New York Yankees baseball cap that didn’t fit and a Stetson. I took the beanie, a denim jacket and a rucksack. I was going to have to buy another hat I think. I started out of the bedroom and spotted a pair of Pat’s glasses on the bedside table and picked them up as well. They looked like they weren’t too strong and I tried them on quickly and decided to take them as well. I walked downstairs and told Mick I was popping out for a bit, he nodded and said he’d be there for a few more hours.
I left Pat’s house and walked towards the King’s Road, stopped and turned round and decided to head towards the tube and go into town. It would be better if I bought all the mobiles in the centre of London as there would be more people and if the police wanted to track my movements, retrospectively, then it would be harder. That made sense to me. I also figure that it would be smarter to buy all of these in cash as then it would be untraceable back to me…but would taking all that money out of my account raise suspicions? No, I could say that I bet it all on the horses because I was depressed about losing my job.
I changed direction and walked towards the bank making sums in my head about how much money I would need. Ten mobiles? Thirty, forty quid each? Call it four hundred. I thought about how much money that was and then figured I needed to speculate to accumulate.
When I reached the bank I stopped outside the door and thought about the bright red rucksack that I was carrying and the beanie on my head and then reconsidered. I went across the road to a small Tesco and grabbed a couple of carrier bags and stuffed the rucksack, denim jacket and beanie in there and then walked back across the road to the bank. I made sure that I looked into all the cameras and cued at the counter.
I looked around the lobby and wondered what the bank we were going to rob was like inside and tried to remember the floor plans that Andy had brought up on the screen but my mind was a total blank. I should be visualizing the layout, walking through the bank, projecting…but the more I thought about that the more it sounded like a self help book I had read at some point or another.
Self help books seem a little bit of a double shuffle to me. There you go, into a bookshop and shell out a tenner on a book that supposedly helps you to succeed at your job, tackle stress better, have work life balance. Seems to me that it would be better to write a self help book that sells a quarter of a million copies and then you would help yourself by selling self help books, which begs the question: who are writing the self help books for the people who write self help books?
I withdrew four hundred pounds and split it into eight so that I didn’t look like a crack dealer buying mobiles for his pushers and left the bank. The feeling that I had about that bank was that the best way to get in was to work there because then you didn’t have to do all the tights over your head sawn off shotgun brandishing bit and could instead control what happened from within.
I caught the tube to Oxford Circus and even though it was a Monday I still got quickly swallowed up in the crowd. I walked along the road and passed mobile phone shops but dismissed them as being too small, that I would be too easily recognized. I stopped at a stall selling souvenirs and bought a baseball cap with a Manchester United badge on it. It hurt me on many levels to wear that, but I figured no one would look me in the face if I wore it.
I stopped at a Dixons, pulled my cap down low and wondered up to the mobile phone area. Because it was a Monday I was quickly apprehended by a sales assistant who I dismissed quickly enough and picked up a Nokia and went to the counter. I refused the top up card, paid with cash and left the shop. That was easy. I stopped outside and thought about where I could go next. Tottenham Court Road!
I doubled back and made my way back to Tottenham court road and bought a different mobile in every other shop. I stopped in a pub half way down, used the toilet and stripped away all the useless packaging and put the mobiles in the rucksack while I was in the cubicle. I thought that I was being overly paranoid but what with all the C.C.T.V they have nowadays – well, you can’t be too careful. I returned to the bar, finished my half pint and left. I dialed Rich’s number.
‘Hey,’ I said when he picked up.
‘How you doing?’ asked Rich.
‘Okay, got the phones.’
‘That was quick. How’s Mick getting on?’
‘Not too bad, what about you?’
‘Not great, Barney wants a meeting about the job, he wants to put in some of his input,’ replied Rich.
‘What does that mean?’
‘If I know Barney it’s not going to be fashion advice,’ sighed Rich, ‘he wants to meet tonight at the club
‘Tonight? Is he going to freak me out?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean? He’s not Uri Geller.’
‘No, no – I mean like Lock Stock well ‘ard geezer and all that?’
‘Actually, he’s not like that at all, that’s what’s so fuckin’ scary about him.’
‘Rich, I’m getting the fear a bit here.’ There was a pause on the end of the line and I heard Rich sigh again.
‘Yeah, brother, you got that right,’ said Rich.
‘What time do you want me round?’ I asked.
‘Barney is coming over at eight but there is someone I want you to meet first, so come over at about five thirty, a guy called Raymond.’
‘And who’s Raymond?’
‘Just some bloke I want you to meet,’ said Rich.
‘Who is he? My real Dad? An interior decorator? Yoga teacher? C’mon Rich, I am not in the right frame for surprises.’
‘Just dress pretty smart and I’ll tell you this evening,’ replied Rich, ‘and don’t be late, and by smart I mean a nice suit but no tie, see you later.’ With that Rich hung up. I looked at the phone as if it might offer me an explanation, shrug it’s shoulders and say: brothers, eh?
I tubed it back to Pat’s and let myself in. Mick had left a note in the middle of the hallway:
Done all the plastering and filling but need to let the plaster dry and then sand it. Will re-paper tomorrow and repaint then.
Mick
I unpacked the mobiles and laid them across the table like coffins. I guess this was the first stage. I checked the time and figured that I better get my skates on if I were to make the club before five thirty.
Pat was a bit bigger than me, but I figured: in for a penny, in for a pound so I borrowed one of his suits.
CHAPTER 8
The club was quiet on Mondays and this early it was just deliveries and bar staff. George wasn’t on the door yet and would probably
have the night off. I walked into the club and saw Rich at the bar sipping a cappuccino and chatting to a tall, skinny guy in a suit. He was wearing spectacles and was smiling at Rich saying something, he turned towards me as I approached.
‘Ah, you must be Dan, ‘ he offered his smooth hand, ‘I’m Raymond.’ He had an Eastern European accent but his English was near perfect.
‘Yeah, that’s me.’ I shook his hand and he nodded at the barman in a way that suggested that he always got served wherever he went.
‘Would you like something to drink? A coffee?’ asked Raymond, ‘a tea?’
‘Actually, a tea would really hit the spot.’
“Shall we sit in one of the booths,’ suggested Rich.
‘Sure,’ said Raymond nodding at the barman. We all sidled over to a booth and sat down.
‘So,’ said Raymond, arching his hands together.
‘So,’ said Rich, pursing his lips.
Raymond smiled. ‘So, this is Raymond?’
‘Raymond is someone who gets things, things we need that we might not be able to buy off of Ebay.’
‘If I may?’ said Raymond, Rich nodded. ‘I understand that you are undertaking a project that requires certain tools. These tools are obviously difficult to source quietly and discreetly on the open market – that’s what I can do…for a price, naturally.’
‘We’re talking guns, right?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ said Raymond nodding.
‘What type of guns?’ I asked, intrigued.
‘Whatever you want – if price is not an issue then just amount anything can be sourced.’ He spread his hands as if he were an interior decorator.
‘Okay, we’d like a couple of Apache attack helicopters –‘ I said.
‘Dan…’ said Rich.
Raymond chuckled quietly, ‘you would be surprised. Such items can be bought on the open market.’ He looked Rich to me. ‘Why don’t you tell me what kind of project you require them for and then I can suggest some solutions? I sense that you don’t really know what you want.’
‘We are going to do a job that will require some crowd control – at most,’ said Rich. He looked to me.
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