Cracking Up

by Harry Crooks

  20.

  The next few days there was an uneasy tension at the marketplace as punters cruised the close for their drugs. We were cautiously on the lookout for the Mug Fam and police with all senses on full alert for any kind of danger.

  We concentrated on just doing the graft and drug sales were increasing each passing day. But we’d got to the point were we needed more muscle to protect our turf and rage war with the Mug Fam who were intruding on our patch continually. I was getting pissed off with that bunch of cunts, acting like top pricks all the time and declaring war business on us. I was more than ready to do battle, but first, I needed to recruit more muscle while plotting payback.

  Spermy was still in ozzie under arrest and armed guard, picking the stitches out of his leg so that he could avoid the looming transfer to a more secure remand centre to await a court appearance, knowing the inevitable would happen; that he’d be called to go to the Crown for sentencing and go down for real with the meanest of the mean in that dire place we called THE CONCRETE CUNT.

  He would be sorely missed, he was a fearsome heavy hitter and without him the crew would struggle against the increasing threat of that other faction who had been sending shout outs that they were going to wipe us out. Even though I considered myself lucky to dodge a bullet the other night, the episode had served as a sharp reminder of why I had to strengthen the crew and retaliate if life was going to be worth living. I had a strong conviction that the Mug Fam were trying to rub me out, take over our lucrative patch and I’d better get in there first - or else, I wouldn’t live to see twenty!

  Dobber had just been released from a depressingly long detain in the concrete cunt and it hadn’t taken too long for the poor fucker to get in touch. He was a big fucker with a buckshee streetwise head on him for his tender years, twenty.

  He was called Dobber because he was a dirty old bugger, couldn’t be arsed with girls his own age. He liked skirt young, virgin schoolie cunt, fresh meat. He’d gotten four years, halved on appeal, for dealing crack and nasty, and had promised himself no way was he going back.

  On release, he was admitted to a bail hostel in town. His newly appointed probation officer had met him outside nick and driven him straight up there. Everything was sound for the first few weeks, his P.O. had secured him a pot washing job in the kitchens of a famous landmark grand hotel in town, but he couldn’t handle the mind-numbing boredom of his joey job, began smoking weed and the promises were just sliding away.

  He didn’t particularly want to go back to the jailhouse, but he knew he was kidding himself; he wasn’t going to be able to stick the minimum wage work and it was only a matter of time before he got sucked back into the drug-infested hole of The Shooting Range.

  He gave us a bell and I picked the phone up. I was made up he’d thought to call me and was happy to hear from him. “All right there, Dobber, lar? You’re fucking out then lad. Good to hear from you, man. How’s tricks?” I asked.

  He told me about the job. “Fuck that man, we don’t work, we’re fucking grafters, we’re Ju$tu$ crew lad, we thug and smoke skunk. There’s a spot for you here,” I told him. “We got nothing but love for you, lar. We need you, we’ll sort you out with a place to live and that, don’t stress about nothing!”

  “I don’t know,” he said, answering that he was worried about going back to prison.

  “Come on Dobber, just fucking do it will you and stop fannying about like a soft shite,” I butted in before he could evade the invitation to the mayhem.

  “Okay, I’m in.”

  His first night back in the crew we went out to celebrate. It was Saturday night and we were intent on showing him a good time after being stuck away in a hell hole for two years. Four of us hit the town, buzzing to fuck on coke and shouting up a good few rounds in the boozers. We were sinking pints and having a good crack, there was the relay to the bogs to bung a fair few lines of the dancing powder up our hooters and, generally, we were having a top fucking night out. After last orders, it was time for offmans. A quick confer resulted in a unanimous vote for a newly opened club in the city centre called The G Spot. It advertised itself as the place to come.

  It was just after midnight and town was heaving. There were loads of people everywhere; it was buzzing. One of our lot mentioned that the club might be full of lads we had on going beef with and there were rumours that they would be making a move to do us over. “Fuck them cunts!” I shrugged. “Nobody stops us! We go where we want to go.”

  We were having a banging night out, just trying to be fucking friendly and cop for some birds, not cause trouble. I was grumbling about the entrance fee with the big fuck-off steriod-freaking bouncers, trying to blag the undeviating doormen that I knew Merv, the head of security, who happened to be an associate of Dog Sick. The juiced up giants must have got out of the wrong side of the bed that morning because they weren’t having none of it and didn’t want to let us in. I was complaining about their rude and unfriendly manner, but was not gaining any ground on the matter, when Merv came to the door and pulled me aside and quickly explained we would only be allowed entry if we consented to a body search. They patted us down for weapons and allowed us entry. I swaggered in, fixing my ruffled designer shirt with a shrug and adjusting my tackle in the process, muttering to myself and cussing the doormen for being top pricks, but not too loudly, just in case.

  Inside the club was packed out, nearly full. All the top grafters were in there; gorgeous birds and smart lads, God’s gifts and mad for it, chasing after the skirts in the vain hope of copping for a shag. Top sources of the old chazz and the little fellas were skulking about in the shadows, begging to be taxed. Trim and Caspar had gone to get the round in and were getting friendly with a couple of girls propping up the bar, having a laugh and a flirt with them, giving it the old chat-up routine. The DJ was banging some top tunes out, the punters were on the dance floor and shaking that arse. We were clocked by a few faces as we stood on the edge of the dance floor, they let onto us and we eased up. There was a full-on clubland party atmosphere and we were trying to chill, stop being paranoid and on full alert for a change.

  My attention was distracted by the sexy birds who were busting moves on the throbbing dance floor, dancing as horny as Beyonce to the music. Bold as brass, I grooved out on to the floor, as I spotted a tasty little number getting down. She was the best thing I’d seen that night, a hot babe with a blazeful body, looking in my direction. I peeped her long sexy legs, noticed the ring in her belly button and felt a boner coming on. Her outfit was ridiculously revealing, she had boss tits, double Ds. This is it, I told myself, she’s well-fit and the chase is on. Oh yeh, the stars are shinning on you tonight Ow-wee lad, I thought. Then the lights went out and, no, it wasn’t one of those annoying electricity cuts.

  A sworn enemy, a cousin of Bola and affiliated to the Mug Fam, lurking in the club had pushed his way through the teeming dance floor and slam dunked a beer bottle on my head. It was a flash knockdown, I blacked out then came too and scrambled to my feet, groggily. Warm blood, my blood dampened my head, as Dobber came to the rescue, landing a big thunder-bolting brain shaker on the sneaky fucker’s jaw and knocking him clean off his feet. He punched fuck out of him, broke his nose and kicked him in the head. Someone close by whipped out a pistol and fired off two shots into the ceiling.

  Someone yelled. “Scatter, someone’s got a gun.”

  The club erupted into a fucking mayhem of smashing bottles and screaming dancers, pure chaos and bedlam. Bouncers ran around like headless chickens, as clubbers legged it from the bars and dance floor and stampeded out onto the street, a Matrix unit and ambo were racing to the scene.

  The contender who’d bottled me, Narkie, had opted out of a further confrontation outside the club and left the scene with his cronies in a hurry, in a taxi bound for the casualty unit of the RLH. Later, in a motor on the way home, Narkie, who had my number, called me, as he was lying on a bed in one of the hospital’s curtain-partioned cubicles. He said
. “You’re fucking dead, lad.”

  “Oh yeh?”

  “Yeh!” He seemed to think it was a dead cert.

  “Well, the way I see it: You’re the one in fucking ozzie, you stupid cunt,” I said.

  “When I get out, I’m going to sort YOU right out the game, you fucking rat,” he menaced.

  “I’ll be fucking seeing you, then, you fucking wanker,” I laughed. “And, err, oh yeh, Dobber says hello.”

  We laughed our bollocks off in the car because Dobber had done the business and cained him good-style. “You’re one of us now,” I said to Dobber, bumping fists. “Ju$tu$ Crew!”

  21.

  Next day I was having a lie-in because it was Sunday, until the insistent vibrating of my phone broke my peace and quiet. It was Spermy and there was anxiety in his voice. Although he was kept under armed guard in a secure unit in the nice clean ozzie, restrictions had been lifted, he’d been allowed a visitor and Lee had smuggled a fob phone in. He was under arrest, though he hadn’t been formally charged with anything yet, so still had his human rights, a crafty leg-over being top of the list.

  A whole team of competent surgeons and nurses had done the necessaries and, after X-rays, had decided his leg had been fixed properly but the news wasn’t good. It meant that any day now he would be well enough to be moved into police custody. He was stressed out that he’d be remanded to a Cat A wing because of firearms offences. “Between me and you, I can’t do the prison time, man. They’re going lock me up and throw away the key. I’ll be an arle effing codger when I get out, for fuck’s sake. It’s doing me head in. You’ve got to help us out, mate. Please, lad: I’m fucking begging here. Come and get me out of here. While I’m in ozzie there’s still a chance of a breakout. Once the bastards have got us in the nick, fucking forget it, bruv.”

  That afternoon he was sitting in a wheelchair being pushed down to the Radiology Department for yet another X-ray with a view to getting the final verdict of a specialist afterwards. The porter had just manoeuvred him out of the lift when the crack team that was despatched came to rescue Spermy. The porter copped for a few digs and was unceremoniously tossed back into the lift and sent back up to the top floor. Me and Caspar lifted him out the chair, draped him by the arms, round our necks and dragged him off to the waiting car, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, ballied-up. “Oi, you lot, where do you think you’re going?”

  It was security breathing down our necks.

  He caught up with us at a fire exit; I turned and lifted my hoodie up, flashing the butt of a pistol stuffed down my trackies. In that instant, the hospital mafiosi froze on the spot and just stood there watching as we managed to get Spermy down the staircase and bundled him into the motor. Dobber gunned the engine, got us out of there and away from the ozzie.

  We headed out of town, over the Runcorn Bridge and sped down the motorway to a hideaway caravan park in Denbigh, North Wales. The caravan had all mod cons, Sky and an Xbox, a well-stocked fridge. I left him a hefty lump of draw and the equipment with which to enjoy it: A full packet of lung bleeders and king-size papers. “We’re getting off now, Spermy,” I told him. “Dog Sick wants us back on The Range to do the bizzo. I’ll give you a bell tomorrow.”

  “Give us your shooter, Ow-wee.”

  “What for?” I said.

  “Just in case,” he said. “You never know: Anything can happen and I’m on me own, innit.”

  I ended up giving him the Baikal I was packing that day because he didn’t feel safe being stuck out there on his own. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given him a couple of grammes of coke because guns and the devil dust are a fucking nightmare if you intend to try and keep a low profile and not attract the interest of the bizzies.

  Now, Denbigh is a two-bob town that time forgot, a backwater so boring that it didn’t seem possible that a recovering Spermy could get into any bother there, of all places. But, after a couple of days cooped-up in the relative comfort of the caravan, he’d began to get REALLY BORED. Taking it easy and keeping his head down was not on Spermy’s agenda because he was always in his own little state of being, a hyper-active mood swinger. He couldn’t sit still for five minutes, the fucker couldn’t handle being confined to THE VAN; he was bored shitless, and wanted a night out.

  He’d gone to the one and only club in town and gotten into the inevitable kick-off with the notoriously unfriendly locals. He’d sauntered in and began downing bottles of Becks. Understandably, being the lone Scouser in town, the local lads took an instant aversion to the cocky Scouse cunt intruding on what they saw as their territory. They really began to take exception to him when the local women started to veer in his direction, tempted to indulge in the Class A powders in his possession and dirty dance with him all over the gaff. They didn’t like it one bit when he’d stuck his beer bottle down the cleavage of a tasty Welsh bird and told her to mind it for him while he went for a slash; he didn’t want anyone to pop a date rape pill in it, he’d joked.

  He’d walked toward the toilets but, as he neared the end of the bar, a big fucker stuck out a foot and tripped him up. Spermy lost his balance and almost crashed into a table full of drinks. But he slammed his palms against the table and righted himself. Spermy turned and stormed over to the Taffy geezer giving it the biggun. Big bastard or not, it couldn’t be ignored. He had to have it out there and then. He pulled the nine milli out from the small of his back and pointed it straight at the offender’s boat race. “I’ll blow your fucking head off, you sheep shagging cunt,” he threatened.

  The Welsh lad saw the shooter and set off running toward the rear exit. Spermy let off a round which exploded the optics behind the bar. The Taffy crashed through the door out into the parking lot with Spermy struggling after him with his gammy leg. Spermy stopped at the rear exit and fired the nine milli, licking off three more shots in rapid succession. Cartridges clattered onto the tarmac from the clips as the magazine unloaded. Then it was offmans, he jumped into a taxi and, like a prick, went back to the caravan.

  It was just a matter of time before the armed response unit got to grips with him. A rapid response wasn’t long in coming. Police vans surrounded the caravan, demanding that he toss his weapon out. He phoned me up while it was going on. “I went loopy,” he said. “I was pissed up and off me head. Pulled the shooter out. Popped it off.”

  I felt a shudder down my spine. “What!” I said. “You popped the shooter off? What the fucking hell for?”

  “I went to the club chatting up some fanny,” he said. “We were just drinking some beers, I went for a slash and some cunt tripped us up … I lost me rag and went mental.”

  It was true. Spunky couldn’t hold his ale and had a hair trigger temper.

  “They’re going to shoot us,” he said. “They’re outside now. It’s all over.”

  I couldn’t believe it. What a stupid bastard. “Just give yourself up,” I said. “Throw the banger out, RIGHT NOW!”

  He did what I told him and then I heard the caravan door come crashing in and gruff voices shouting ARMED POLICE! ARMED POLICE! ARMED POLICE! He was stood there with his palms open and arms outstretched. They were yelling and all over him in no time, pistols drawn and aimed. They kicked his bad leg and downed him in one, flattened his face against the floor and put their knees between his shoulder blades. His arms were twisted behind his back and the cuffs clamped on his wrists. Game over!

  22.

  Dog Sick had set up a meeting in the cafe by us, The Bait Box, a local greasy spoon where you could eat the cheapest, nastiest scran that could only be consumed when smothered with copious quantities of thin vinegar-laced ketchup. I was sat at a table opposite him, slurping a cup of grease tea and munching on a bacon roll, drowned in red sauce. He was pitching his plan for a stunt because he was desperate to boost the coffers and neatly clean up messy drug debts to suppliers that had accrued due to the nice men of customs seizing a load being smuggled in. He’d done a reckie on a jewellery shop, sussed out which cabinets to target
and stressed that no one was to be even shot at, let alone filled-in. “All right, our kid, look: Just get in there, get the fucking bling and get the fuck out of there. Yo our kid, remember, don’t slot no one.”

  Two days later, in broad daylight, we were positioned outside the jewellery shop wearing crash helmets with the visors down and black leather golf gloves. I noticed the burner in my hand shaking because of the nerves, but it was all part of the process of pulling stunts like this. You’re always going to have a bit of nerves, it keeps you sharp and on top of your game.

  I produced the Glock from the waistband of my trackie bottoms, cocked the slid hammer back and bounced into the jewellery shop. The adrenalin was pumping through the veins, the rush was enormous, paralysing almost, but the buzz of making a killing kept me glued together, unflinchingly, determined to clear the place out.

  The innocent customers and staff were instantly gripped with shocking terror and fear, screaming with panic and anxiety coming out of their arseholes. Everybody threw their hands up, then obediently followed the orders I was barking as Caspar covered the shop door with a little something semi-automatic and a police scanner in a show of force and cunning. The two other lads slipped in smoothly behind us, they were carrying crowbars in their gloved up hands. I scanned the room, my weapon trained on the shell-shocked customers and employees, my head swivelling, checking out for any movement. I shouted orders over the screams. “This is an armed robbery. Get on the fucking floor NOW!”

  They were trembling and sobbing but coward by my command, the workers and customers pressing their faces to the ground. “Keep your hands on the backs of your heads! I ain’t fucking around!” I yelled.