Spartak’s gold tooth flashed and he smiled down on the hoodies. Tam clearly liked the way this show was shaping up, but the scrote’s three mates were now having serious second thoughts. One started slowly shaking his head, another hooked his thumb at the door.
For a second Frankie thought the ferrety kid, who still had hold of Jack, was going to have a crack, but then he wobbled too.
‘All right. All right,’ he said, slowly releasing Jack’s collar and stepping back, not taking his eyes off Frankie for a second. Yeah, definitely not as stupid as he looked.
Jack spluttered and coughed, doubling up, heaving air down into his lungs.
‘Go on, have him,’ said some buck-toothed bastard on Tam Jackson’s right. Some geezer who Jack had been knocking scotches back at the bar with earlier. He was all designer black shirt and jeans and gold chains and attitude – a right little oik, but one Frankie could do without getting involved. A smudged prison tattoo showed on the knuckles of his clenched right fist. No doubt this kid would like nothing more than for the whole bloody place to kick off.
Jack took half a step forward and pointed a finger at the Scouser. ‘You wanker,’ he wheezed.
What the hell? Frankie’s glare practically pinned his little brother to the wall. All Billy Big Bollocks now, was he? Well, he could bloody well forget it. Jack had never been a fighter, not unless he had plenty of backup around him. But maybe that was the problem now, he did.
‘Leave it,’ Frankie warned him, stepping in between the two of them. No way was he having this whole situation blowing up again because of Jack. Not now that he’d nearly got it under control. ‘Out,’ he warned the Scouser. ‘I’m not telling you again.’
Ferret face took another step back. Then another. The crowd slowly parted, then, to let him and his three mates get through. Slowly, slowly, they went. All the way to the door. Then ‘Fuck off!’ one of them shouted and hurled his pint hard into the crowd. It smashed against a pillar, showering broken glass and lager down all over Tam Jackson and his mates.
Frankie’s turn to smile then. Did Tam see him? Hard to tell? Because already his boys were running out shouting after the Scousers. All apart from Jack, who Frankie held back.
And then it was over, as quick as it had started. Then, as the eyes of the crowd focused back on the TV screens, the chant kicked off again.
‘Three Lions on a shirt . . . Juuuuules Rimet still gleaming . . . thiiiiirrrty years of hurt . . . neeeeeever stopped me dreaming . . .’
3
Frankie switched on the telly upstairs in the living room of his flat up above the Ambassador Club while Jack flopped down on the sofa. Post-match analysis. John Motson banging on about how England could have done better. How they’d need to up their game against the Jocks on Saturday.
‘So what was that all about then?’ Frankie said. ‘You and him, downstairs?’
‘Seaman,’ Jack slurred.
‘I take it you don’t mean what’s inside your knackers?’
‘Ha ha. No. Piss off. I mean as in David. Holiest of holy goalies. When that Swiss prick fired that ball past him, that Scouse wanker down there cracked some gag about Seaman never keeping clean sheets.’
Frankie smiled. ‘An old one, but a good one. But so what?’ he said.
‘So he then announced that anyone dumb enough to support Arsenal needed their head examined.’
‘The tosser.’
‘What I told him. Only then he went one further. He spat on the flag on the wall.’
He meant the Old Man’s flag. The club flag. The Gunners flag. The one the Old Man had nailed up there the first day he had taken over the Ambassador, back in ’84.
‘And that’s when I hit him,’ Jack said.
‘Hit him?’
‘Well, pushed him,’ Jack admitted. ‘And don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same. Or the Old Man.’
Frankie said nothing. No point in denying it. Because, yeah, the Old Man would have done something, all right. Had always liked a brawl, word was. Probably came from all that hanging out with them bad boys back in his murky youth here in Soho. People like Riley, who the Old Man had leased this building off. And Terence Hamilton too. Before Hamilton and Riley had grown up into rival gang lords and had ended up at each other’s throats.
Jack was right about Frankie too. Years gone by, he would have more than likely got involved as well. But not any more.
‘I want this place kept off the cops’ blacklist, not on it,’ he said. ‘I’m having enough trouble trying to find sponsorship for this tournament without us getting any worse of a rep than what we’ve already got.’
‘What?’ Jack said sourly. ‘You mean, thanks to me?’
‘Look, what happened last year . . . I know it was none of your fault,’ Frankie said. ‘You got set up.’
For murder . . . for the murder of Susan Tilley, who was bludgeoned to death the night before she was due to marry Dougie Hamilton, the son of Terence Hamilton. Frankie would never forget Jack coming running in here the morning after the poor girl had been killed, all covered in her blood and with no memory of where he’d been for the previous twelve hours.
‘I was set up because of who I was,’ said Jack, ‘because of who I was hanging out with . . . I know that’s what you think.’
Only partly true. Jack had been unlucky too. There were any number of other petty crims like him who could have been picked to take the rap instead. But there was no point in getting into any of that now.
‘We’ll never know why that sick bastard chose you to pin it on,’ Frankie said. ‘He was crazy. That was obvious from his confession.’
The real murderer’s body had eventually been found with a signed, typed letter by his side, detailing how he’d killed Susan Tilley and why.
‘I still dragged the club’s name through the mud, didn’t I?’ Jack slurred. ‘And our family name. All over again. Just the same as with the Old Man.’
And, oh yeah, the press had loved that, hadn’t they? The parasitical bastards. Jack James, the son of convicted armed robber Bernie James, who was currently still a resident of HM Prison Brixton, with nine years of his sentence left to run.
‘But you were proved innocent,’ Frankie said. ‘The same as Dad will be one day. The cops, the press . . . and that poor girl’s family. Everyone now knows that what happened to her that night had nothing to do with you.’
Not that this had stopped Jack trading off his brief brush with notoriety, which had boosted his rep and earned him a whole heap of kudos in the criminal fraternity he was still hanging out in.
Frankie caught his own reflection in the darkened glass of his computer screen on the desk. There were only two people left alive who knew what had really happened to Susan Tilley that night. Frankie and the father of the groom-to-be, Terence Hamilton. Frankie, because he’d worked out who the real killer was. And Terence Hamilton, because . . . well, because he’d taken matters into his own hands after that. Leaving the two of them now with enough dirt on each other to land either one of them in jail if the other ever spoke out.
‘Anyhow, it’s all history now,’ Frankie said. ‘Let’s just leave it in the past.’
‘Just like everything else, eh?’
Jack meant their mum. Their dad. The whole shit parade that had got them to where they were today.
‘Yeah,’ said Frankie, ‘just like that. End of.’
Jack sighed, rubbing at his eyes.
‘When did you last eat?’ Frankie said.
He fixed them both beans on toast and sat down next to his brother to eat. Jack got stuck in, clearly ravenous. Those first few months last year after he’d been let out of prison, Frankie had made sure to check in on him regular, like. To get some decent grub inside him and see that all was well. But Frankie had let it slide, with him then getting back on the booze himself, and forgetting his priorities. Until here the two of them were, back to hardly seeing each other. And all his own piggin’ fault.
Jack burped a
nd let out a long, contented sigh. Frankie smiled. It was good to see him like this. Letting himself be taken care of for once.
‘I can’t believe you still live here,’ Jack said.
He and Frankie had been flatmates here until two years back, when Jack had upped sticks and told Frankie he was moving in with some one-night stand. Of course, that had all gone tits up pretty fast, but he’d then found somewhere else to crash, and then somewhere else after that, before finally getting his own flat sorted over on Warren Street. A right shithole.
‘Your place so much better, is it?’ Frankie said. He was fishing, really. Still couldn’t help thinking Jack would be better off here, where he could keep an eye on him.
‘It will be come Monday,’ Jack said.
‘And why’s that?’
‘I’m moving.’
‘Where?’
‘Ladbroke Grove.’
Nearer to people like Stav Christoforou and Mo Bishara – dealers, pimps and lowlifes. ‘You sure that’s the best place for you?’ Stav was one of the bastards Frankie reckoned had helped set Jack up last summer. Not that he’d been able to prove it. Yet.
‘I’m not moving there for the company,’ Jack said. ‘More an investment.’
‘You thinking about buying somewhere?’ Frankie couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.
‘Not just thinking, bruv. Doing.’
‘You do know you need a deposit, right?’
‘Already got one.’
‘From where? And don’t tell me you and your mates are making that sort of cash from that bleedin’ techno night you’re running over at Shepherd’s Bush.’
‘Techno?’ Jack laughed. ‘Get with it, bruv. That shit died out with the dodo.’
‘Yeah, jungle, triphop, whatever.’ Truth was Frankie didn’t think much of any of that kind of crap. He’d ducked in on Jack and his mates a couple of months back. A bunch of nutters doing pills, bouncing round off walls, hugging each other like they were all in love. And as for the music. Repetitive bollocks. He’d not known how to dance to it at all. Playing Dad to Jack all these years meant he’d never really got into clubbing the way a lot of guys his age had. Granddad, that’s what Spartak sometimes teasingly called him. Old before his years.
‘Riley,’ Jack said.
Meaning who’d given him the money. Tommy Riley. The boss man himself.
‘For what?’
Frankie knew Jack was still doing a bit of work for him, but low-level stuff. Like driving his dolly birds round, running errands, but nothing that would add up to a flat. Nothing that could get him in too much trouble either, he’d been hoping.
‘Just the usual. This and that.’
Frankie wasn’t buying it. ‘You swore to me that working for Riley was just temporary. That you are still looking for proper work.’
‘Yeah, and it’s not like I haven’t tried.’
‘But what? Not any more? Now you’ve given up? Because that’s what this sounds like, you taking a deposit off Riley to buy a flat. Like you’re now just planning on getting deeper and deeper into his world, right up to your neck.’
‘And what else am I meant to do?’ Jack snapped. ‘It’s not like there’s a million other legit jobs out there with my name on them, is it? Not after me being in the papers last year. And not with my qualifications either. Or lack of them. Or maybe you’ve forgotten about how I didn’t exactly get much of an education, what with Mum skipping out and Dad getting done for armed robbery.’
‘She didn’t skip out,’ Frankie said. ‘Something happened to her and the Old Man wasn’t done for armed robbery, he was stitched up.’
‘Anyway, what makes you so different?’ Jack snapped. ‘You’re taking Riley’s money too.’
‘Every penny I have, I’ve earned,’ said Frankie. ‘Out of the club. Dad’s club. Our club. And I’ve told you a hundred times before, you can come here and help me run it too. All you’ve got to do is say the word.’
Jack sneered. Actually sneered. It was all Frankie could do not to grab him by the throat.
‘Work here? There’s hardly enough to pay the wages of them two downstairs . . . Anyway, it’s not Dad’s place. Or ours. Not really, is it? Because Riley still owns the building, doesn’t he? You just pay him rent. Just the same as you had to give to Tam today.’
He was right. Jackson hadn’t been here just for the sport, but collecting the monthly payment Frankie owed on the lease.
‘And any time he wants to pull the rug on you, he can,’ Jack said. ‘Because he’s still the bloody man.’
More truth. Frankie stared at the wall. Riley owned every brick of it. Which was why he had to make this tournament work. To get out from under him. To maybe buy this place outright off of him. Or to set something else up.
‘I do my best. I do what I can.’
‘And so do I,’ said Jack. ‘And, right now, that means working for Riley. Not doing anything stupid. Not like what I promised you I wouldn’t.’ He meant front-line shit. Dealing. Enforcing.
But it still left him working for a gangster. One engaged in a turf war with Terence Hamilton. Out there. On the streets. And with no intention, by the sounds of it, of even trying any more to get out.
‘Anyway,’ said Jack, sparking up a fag and taking a jittery drag, ‘the money I’ve put down on the flat isn’t from that. Not wages.’
Wages? Jesus. He wasn’t even trying to hide it now. He really was full-time on Riley’s books.
‘Then what?’
‘Tommy told me to think of it like a bonus.’
‘What, like you’re some kind of merchant banker?’ Frankie scoffed.
‘For keeping my mouth shut,’ Jack said. ‘About him. And his operations. For not telling the pigs anything about him that whole time they had me banged up last year.’ He flicked ash onto his plate.
Frankie snatched the plate off him and marched through to the kitchen.
‘Jesus,’ Jack shouted, ‘why can’t you just be happy for me for once?’
4
Frankie was up and at ’em bright and early the next morning. One of the big advantages of being on the wagon for as long as he had been this time round was that he’d started waking up feeling like he’d used to as a kid. He felt alert, with bags of energy and piss like Evian. Instead of the usual sick feeling, with a mouth like the bottom of a parrot’s cage and piss like golden syrup.
He had a quick shower and got dressed in his running gear – a Rolling Stones T-shirt, trackie bottom shorts, Adidas trainers. He preferred to keep things old school, none of that Umbro or Reebok crap. He was out the door by eight fifteen: pounding the pavement was part of his new routine – a 10k run three days a week with kickboxing training on the days in between.
He’d come a long way since December, when he’d been back to his worst following the pressure of everything that had happened last year. Sneaky snifters by day, pints behind the bar come evening. Staying out all night drinking with whoever. Gambling. Coke. Nights alone back in the flat. But that had always been his problem, hadn’t it? He never could just have a couple of pints, or the odd cheeky fag or line when he was out with his mates. He was either off it altogether, or on it like a bonnet till he crashed.
And crashed he had. On New Year’s Eve. That incident with that girl he’d picked up in the Atlantic. Picked up and had done a bottle of Wild Turkey and two grams of gack with. Picked up and hadn’t worn a condom with. Picked up and had then found out she had a boyfriend, who’d tipped up sober from the hospital where he’d been working his night shift and had leathered ten bells out of his sorry, drunken self, before slinging him out on his arse.
Incidents. Yeah, that’s what he called them. The shit you did to yourself that you wish you hadn’t. The shit that made you realize you weren’t in control at all and had to sort yourself out.
As he headed off along Poland Street, he tried not to think about his chat yesterday with Jack. It was hard though, as he’d been up half the night, worrying himself sic
k, trying to think of ways to get him away from Riley’s gang. But how? Only by having something better to offer him. And the only way he could do that was by making this bloody tournament work – something he was already busting his gut to achieve.
He tried to focus on his running instead, as he headed down Broadwick Street and on towards Shepherd Market. He tried to picture himself as a real athlete like Linford Christie, going for gold. Not so easy, mind, what with all these smashed bottles and Burger King and Wendy’s wrappers he was having to skirt around. There wasn’t much of a crowd cheering him on round here either. Hardly a soul out, in fact. Apart from a couple of street sweepers and some chatty smackhead flirting with his own reflection in a porn shop window.
But that was Soho on a Sunday morning for you, wasn’t it? Everyone sleeping off their excesses from the night before. Either that or they’d all suddenly got religion and were kneeling in church, repenting their sins. As-bloody-if.
He called in at Bar Italia on Frith Street on his way back home and picked up a double espresso to go. Not even half nine yet and already the place was packed. A mix of tourists and locals. A smattering of Italian speakers among them, something that always left Frankie regretting he’d never learned to speak it himself. His granddad, Tadeo Balistreri, was Sicilian. Not that Frankie had ever had the pleasure. He’d died in a road accident after going back there for a funeral, leaving Frankie’s gran here in London to bring Frankie’s mum up on her own.
Doc Slim was making out like a lizard in the sun with a table and two chairs set up on the pavement when Frankie got back to the Ambassador, sucking on a cheroot and cradling his first whiskey and soda of the day, a concoction Frankie knew would get progressively darker as evening approached until the need for soda was dispensed with altogether. Spotting Frankie, he blew a lazy plume of smoke in his general direction and tilted the brim of his busted old straw panama hat.
‘Morning, boss. And how the devil are you, this fine morning?’ he said.
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