by Conrad Jones
“Whoa, there!” Jinx held his hands up. “I said we would square it with the Turks. I said we would back up your story and confirm that it was a robbery. That’s all.”
“They have my wife, Jinx!”
“I’m sorry about that, Jessie, but what do you think I can do to help?”
“Could you lend me the money to cover the cost of the drugs?”
“You can’t pay that kind of money back, Jessie.”
“Please help me.”
“I can’t, Jessie.”
“They’ll kill her,” Jessie whined.
“I can’t help you.”
“Speak to them for me.”
“I can do that.” Jinx shrugged. He didn’t mind talking to them and explaining what had happened at the poker game, but that was all he was prepared to do. “Tell them to call me.”
Jessie was about to speak, but a mobile phone began ringing. They both had the same ringtone and they reached for their devices. Jinx looked at his screen. The number was unrecognised. He stabbed the green button and put the phone to his ear.
“This is Jinx,” he said. He looked at Jessie as he spoke. The call was a welcome respite from the conversation he was having. It would give him time to think. The Turks were in a league of their own. They had more soldiers than any other outfit he could think of, and they were all prepared to die for their family interests. They had a reputation unrivalled by any other crime family. If you crossed them, then you died, and so did your family, simple. Everyone knew the score. Jinx was a tough man, but he was just one man. He didn’t want to get involved in their business.
“Listen to me. I will not repeat this,” the voice on the telephone said.
“Who is this?” Jinx growled. He looked at the phone as if it had offended him.
“Shut up and listen. There is a hit out on you.”
“Go on.” Jinx stopped frowning. He could hear his heart beating in his chest.
“Leon Tanner has put a hit on you. He is paying forty thousand pounds, twenty to Jackson Walker and twenty to Dean Hines. Leon has a shipment of crack landing at Liverpool docks tomorrow, which gives you, time to react. They are planning to take you out in the next few days.” The Gecko hung up. He had a few more calls to make to muddy the waters of the underworld. If he could turn all the sharks against each other, then a feeding frenzy would ensue. The more gangsters died, the happier he would be.
The line went dead. Jinx looked at the screen. He pressed recall and dialed the last number. It was dead. It had probably been a prepaid SIM.
“Look, I know you’re busy, Jinx, but I don’t have much time. I need your help.”
Jinx stood up and opened the office door. “I’m sorry, Jessie, something urgent has come up. If I were you, I would talk to the police. It’s the only chance you have.”
“Please, Jinx, I have only forty-eight hours.”
“I don’t think I’ve got that long. Sorry, Jessie, but I need you to leave now.”
Jessie nodded his head, resigned to the fact he was on his own. He couldn’t expect anyone to take on the Turks on his behalf. It would be suicide.
“Go to the police, Jessie.” Jinx shook his hand. “Tell them everything, it’s the only chance you have. Nobody else can help you.” Jinx closed the office door. He felt sorry for Jessie, but the call he had received changed everything. His own safety was his priority. He wasn’t surprised. He had been on a collision course with Leon for years. Leon despised the people Jinx tried to help. Leon abused the teenagers Jinx tried to protect. The city wasn’t big enough for them both, and it was obvious Leon felt the same way. Jinx knew both the men who were coming for him. Jackson was a maverick, but Deano was a family man. Jinx had no choice but to take all three of them out. Dean’s kids would be orphaned, but he couldn’t risk leaving their father alive. He would make a few calls, cash in some favours and hit them before they hit him.
Chapter Seventeen
The Gecko: The Past
The day after his mother had hit him, Nate went to school as normal. His mother was crashed out in bed and he didn’t see her before he left. The revelation that his mother was taking hard drugs had shocked him deeply. He was horrified. His father’s reaction was equally shocking. After taking his mother upstairs, his father hadn’t said a word to him and Nate had been so shocked that he didn’t know how to ask him about his mother’s drug taking. His father had seemed ice cold and unapproachable.
Nate walked to school as normal that morning. A double lesson of mathematics before lunchtime was more of a drag than usual. He couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was his mother. How could his mother have developed a heroin habit, for God’s sake? She watched Jeremy Kyle and Big Brother and wore Levis jeans and other yesterday brands. It was too much to take in one go. The bell was a welcome break and he met up with some friends on the way to buy his dinner. He knew some of the lads at school had dabbled with drugs. He chatted to them about the effects of heroin. One of his close friends told him the signs, explaining how to tell that someone was using and what to look for. When he asked him why he wanted to know, Nate clammed up and blushed.
“You’re not thinking of trying that crap, are you?” His friend Carl Lewis asked him. They were walking toward the chip shop to buy their dinner. Chips, mushy peas and gravy today, Nate thought. He hadn’t eaten the night before as his mother had been smashed out her skull on smack. How embarrassing could a parent be? Talking to his friend was helping, but he didn’t want to tell him the real reason why he was asking about drugs.
“No,” Nate replied. He kicked a stone and it clattered down the road before rattling off a lamppost. “I’m just curious, that’s all.”
“E is okay and I’ve done a bit of weed, but smack is for dickheads, Nate.” His mate sounded like a man of the world. His parents had sheltered Nate. He was quiet and didn’t have many friends. Listening to his friend made him feel stupid, as if he had missed out. The other kids seemed to know all about drugs and girls and Nate knew nothing about either.
“You’ve tried E, wow,” Nate said impressed. Carl was one of the cool set in his year. He always had the newest trainers and the trendiest clothes. Nate liked him, but he made himself scarce when Carl’s other friends were around. They teased Nate about his boring haircut and dated fashion. His mother always bought him branded gear just as everyone else had stopped wearing it. She had a knack of buying un-cool trainers.
“Yes, of course I have,” Carl laughed. “You should come out with us sometime and drop one, great fun, you’ll be buzzing off your tits, mate.”
“Yes, I might,” Nate laughed too and doubted that he ever would. “Where do you get them from?”
“Got a mate who does a bit of dealing, know what I mean?” Carl tapped his nose with his index finger.
“I see,” Nate nodded. He didn’t have a clue, but he pretended he did.
“Hey, Carl,” a voice interrupted them.
“Hey, Grebby,” Carl shouted and threw his hand high into the air. His friend jumped up and slapped it with his own. “This is my friend, Nate.”
“Alright, Nate,” Grebby put his hand up to be slapped and Nate obliged. He felt embarrassed but welcome at the same time.
“Hi,” Nate replied meekly.
“Where are you going?” Grebby asked his friend.
“Chippy,” Carl laughed. “Starvin Marvin am I,” he said imitating Yoda from the Star Wars films.
“Nice one, I’ll join you,” Grebby slapped him on the back.
Grebby looked like a bit of a hippy. His hair was long and greasy and he was definitely not a fashion victim. Nate thought he was in the year group above them.
“I was just telling Nate here about E,” Carl chuckled and tapped his nose again.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Grebby laughed and tapped his own substantial conk. Nate noticed he had blackheads all over his nose and chin and his skin looked greasy.
“He was asking about smack before, weren�
�t you, mate,” Carl patted Nate on the back.
Grebby looked at Nate and then looked away quickly. Nate got the feeling he was not comfortable with the subject.
“Yes, I was just asking, that’s all,” Nate looked at his shoes as he walked. He was worried about his mother and the look in Grebby’s eyes when they had mentioned heroin made him more concerned.
“It’s best to stay away from that shit,” Grebby said seriously. “It gets a grip on people and fucks them up, Nate.”
“I need to shoot home for a minute,” Nate blurted. He felt sick inside. “Catch you later, I’ve forgotten something important.” He turned on his heels and ran toward his house. It was a half mile away down a cul-de-sac and he never broke his stride once. The roads were quiet when he reached his street and he chose to run on the road instead of the pavement. He was hot and sweating when he turned the last corner and his breath was coming in deep gulps. Blood pumped loudly through his brain and the air he sucked into his lungs felt scorched. He had a stitch when he reached his road. As he cleared the corner house, he saw an ambulance parked on his driveway.
Nate stopped in his tracks. He was breathing heavily as a police car screamed past him with its siren blaring. His father stood on the driveway with his head in his hands. Nate sprinted as fast as he could toward the house.
“Dad, what’s happened?” He shouted as he approached. The police officers were climbing out of their car as he reached the driveway.
“Why aren’t you at school?” His father looked shocked to see him. He positioned himself between Nate and the front door.
“What’s happened?” Nate was panicking. Somehow, he knew it was his mother. “Where’s Mum?”
“Nate, she’s not good, Son,” his father replied.
Nate was running at full pelt and he used his sporting prowess to sidestep his dad with ease.
“Nate!” He shouted as his son bounded through the front door and cleared the first three stairs, heading for the upstairs. Nate took the stairs two at a time and then stopped suddenly.
There was a paramedic kneeling next to his mother’s body on the bathroom floor. She had a needle hanging from her arm and there was dried vomit down her chest and around her mouth and nostrils. Her skin was grey and blue veins stood out around her eyelids.
The next few hours were a blur as the police and ambulance crew inspected his mother’s dead body.
The inquest declared it was death by misadventure, heroin overdose. There were no other needle marks on her body, but there were opiates in her hair and fingernails, which indicated she had been using for months.
Nate couldn’t help but think his father had something to do with his mother’s death, but their relationship was so estranged he couldn’t talk to him about college, let alone his concerns. He felt isolated and alone. He loved his mother. She was the only real parent he’d had. His memories of his father were waving goodnight at the study door on the few occasions he came home.
The funeral was a blur. A handful of family showed up, then disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. His college friends rallied around and tried to console him with an ecstasy tablet and tequila shots. Nate collapsed in his friend’s bedroom. After two weeks in high dependency care his kidneys failed, and the Gecko organised his second funeral in a month.
Chapter Eighteen
Nate Bradley: The Past
The death of his wife and son hit him hard. Harder than he thought it would, when he considered how estranged they had been to him. He hunted through the house and gathered as many photographs as he could find. There were a few faded pictures of him with his son, but nothing recent. The years he had spent apart from them suddenly seemed like a wasteland in his mind. He had wasted so much of their precious time together working. His work had torn other men from their families and none of them had ever returned. He had returned, and done nothing with his opportunity to be with his family. He had wasted the chance he had had. Guilt began to tear at his soul. Guilt for the pain he had caused others began to eat into him, but he justified it. It was because he had been at war. His work extracting information had saved thousands of lives in the long run and made sure that most of their troops had gone home to their families. At least that was what he had told himself then. Now he wasn’t sure if he had saved any lives at all. He had taken plenty of them, and perhaps his loss was retribution from divine forces that he didn’t understand.
In his mind, his family suddenly became the most important thing in his life, and they were dead. They were dead. Dead. The scumbag who had given his son the ecstasy tablet had murdered him. The dealer who had supplied his wife with heroin had murdered her. The supplier who had shipped the filth into the country had murdered them both. Nate decided he would use his skills to discover who had murdered his family. He would find the suppliers, take their drugs and money and stop them killing anyone again. All of a sudden, he had a new focus in life. He wanted revenge for his family.
The next day after making some calls, he went looking for Nate’s friends. He needed to find whoever had given his son the ecstasy tablet that had killed him. That would be the beginning, and he could work his way up from there. The first boy he spoke to was reluctant to say anything, but when Nate threatened to speak to his parents, he gave up the name, Carl Lewis. Another one of his son’s friends gave up the same boy’s name. Carl had provided Nate and his friends with drugs at the wake. Carl Lewis had provided his son with the ecstasy tablet that had killed him. Carl Lewis had murdered his son.
The Gecko went home and prepared a few things for the next part of the mission. He would need to ask Carl where he had bought the drugs. Carl was young, so frightening him into talking should not be too much trouble. It was what he did. That was who he was, the Gecko. When he found Carl Lewis, he was walking along a pavement next to a playing field. He slowed his car down and pulled close to the curb. Carl saw him and put his head down. He felt responsible for his friend’s death and meeting his father was a nightmare coming true. What was he going to say?
“Carl,” Gecko called through the window. He stopped the vehicle and opened the passenger door. “I need to talk to you.”
Carl was red faced and he looked scared. He carried on walking for a few steps before turning around. It was a huge mistake to make. He climbed into the car and turned to speak to Nate’s father.
“Hello, Mr. Bradley,” Carl said nervously. Carl wanted to say sorry. He wanted to cry and tell him how sorry he was that Nate had died. He wanted to tell him that he had not slept properly since Nate had been admitted to the hospital and that he had been physically sick when he was told that Nate had died, but he did not get the chance. As he sat down, Mr Bradley, the Gecko, chopped him in the throat with the edge of his hand. Carl gagged, stunned by the blow. Gecko used a chloroform soaked rag to knock him out and then he tied him up, taped his mouth and bundled him into the back of the car.
Chapter Nineteen
Jackson Walker
Jackson didn’t believe that Dean was going to go through with the hit on Jinx. He wasn’t answering his mobile and Jackson had left four messages already that morning. Dean had the gun they had used before, so he decided to use a different one and claim all the hit money for himself. Leon didn’t care who pulled the trigger, as long as it was pulled. All he had to do was clarify that he would get the entire forty grand if he killed Jinx. Jackson picked up a steel coloured Smith and Wesson and wiped it clean with a soft yellow duster. He clicked out the cylinder and pushed six bullets into it. He cleaned the trigger guard to remove any partial prints and then wrapped the gun in the duster. Jinx wouldn’t know what had hit him. He was often alone, especially when he walked to the gym he owned. It was all part of his workout. Jackson chuckled to himself. Walking to the gym was going to be very bad for his health this time. Jackson would have to be very careful that there were no witnesses. If anyone realised he was responsible for murdering Jinx, he wouldn’t see the week out. That was the only downside to the hit. Jackson
didn’t care that Jinx helped people in the community that he lived in. He was wasting his time and his money as far as Jackson was concerned. The losers, drug addicts and prostitutes who lived in his community were beyond help. Jackson wanted the money and all he had to do was pull the trigger.
He put the gun onto a glass coffee table, next to a half-drunk can of cider. He picked up the can and drained the contents in one gulp. The cider was warm and flat.
“That’s shit, man,” he complained to himself. “Get yourself a fresh one, Jackson. This time tomorrow you can fill the fridge with that shit.” He chuckled as he thought about his payday. Forty grand would make a huge difference to his life. New duds, new motor, a few foxy ladies. It was all within his grasp. He stood and crossed a beige carpet to the kitchenette. His bedsit was tiny and the kitchen was crammed into one corner of the living room. The sink was piled high with pots that needed washing. He opened the fridge and grabbed the last can of cider from an empty shelf. The shelf above held an open tin of baked beans and a discoloured pork sausage. Jackson wasn’t broke, he was lazy. Food came ready prepared in his world. He opened the ring-pull and gulped the bubbly cider down as he pressed the play button on his stereo. Bob Marley began to sing ‘Exodus’ backed by the Wailers.
Jackson walked to the window and looked out over the city. He lived on the edge of Toxteth near the river. The giant Anglican cathedral filled his view. The river flowed into the Irish Sea behind it. There was a paperboy delivering to the flats across the road. Jackson recognised him as the son of a friend. He should be in school today, and Jackson made a mental note to tell his father the next time he saw him. The mountain bike he was riding looked expensive. It was way out of his father’s league, probably stolen. Jackson sipped his cider and contemplated life. One member of the community would die today, and he would profit from his death. A large shipment of crystal meth would land tonight, and with it would come misery and desperation for the community’s addicts. Jackson would profit from that too. Jinx tried to help this community and Jackson was going to murder him. Jackson didn’t think it was right somehow, but that was life on the streets.