“And where did the fiver come from? It’s a tenner a fuck.”
“That new Romanian girl, she’s on the rag an’ only wants to give blowjobs.”
“That’s a missed opportunity, boy. There are people prepared to pay extra to fuck a bleeding pussy.” The Boss laughed at his own joke. He was the only one to find it amusing.
Nate nodded and smiled, as did Gibbo and Wade.
Counting up the money, the Boss peeled off a twenty pound note, placing it in the young man’s hand.
“I want you to work those girls hard. Get them out on the street if needs be. I want double the money by the morning and if I get it, I’ll pay you double. Got it?”
Again, Nate nodded. It was wiser not to speak. The Boss would usually clout him for answering back. Nate wasn’t taking any chances.
Stepping back into the hallway, the Boss headed upstairs. As ever, his two henchmen followed.
At the top of the staircase was a small bedroom. There was no door, just a curtain. The sound of a squeaking bedframe came through the thin material.
The Boss nudged the cloth across to take a look inside.
On the bed lay a dark-haired Eastern European woman, her underfed body covered in bruises and scabs. To the Boss, they were either girls or women. The woman, laying naked with a skinny middle-aged man thrusting into her, was older than many of the others in the house. Thirty-ish, maybe.
Having a dingy brothel was ideal if a person was of a voyeuristic nature. The thrill of watching people having sex, whether paid for or not, was tantalising.
Moving onto the next room, the Boss pulled back the curtain sharply.
There wasn’t any noise coming from inside. He expected to see an empty room or maybe a drug-addled whore crashed out on the filthy mattress. However, what he saw infuriated him.
This room housed the Romanian girl. She was on her knees sucking pathetically on the semi-erect penis of a man dressed in a business suit. The suit was expensive. The man looked somewhere in his late fifties.
“Why aren’t you fucking him?” The hushed tone bristled with menace.
The man, taken aback by the intrusion, whipped up his trousers and barged past the men.
The girl said nothing. Her eyes were full of disgust. Not just for the client that had just fled, or the men standing over her now, but for her own wretched life.
“I said why aren’t you fucking him?” The Boss walked right up to the girl, who was still kneeling.
“It is my period. It is not sexy.” Her broken English was good enough to be understood, but not good enough for an excuse.
“Well maybe you have to learn how to fuck and bleed at the same time.”
He nodded toward the curtain. Wade pulled it closed.
The Boss took a packet of condoms from his jacket pocket. He kept one for himself and past two over his shoulder. He didn’t look to see who took them from his fingers.
“Put ’em on boys. Fuck knows where this one’s been.”
Under normal circumstances, an eighteen year old immigrant would have protested, begged for mercy, tears flowing for a sympathetic response.
But no.
This girl knew any form of resistance would be thrashed out of her. She simply lay back and accepted her fate. It was the wise thing to do.
It was what survivors did.
*
Fifteen minutes later, the girl was alone again. Three spent condoms filled with semen, covered in her menstrual blood, lay dumped on the bare floorboards of the room.
Her lesson was learned. The hard way.
Chapter 17
The one month anniversary of his release from prison was almost up. Dom had fallen into a routine effortlessly. Routine, at least, was something he hadn’t forgotten while in prison. This was just an infinitely better routine.
The job at Mach Tech was dominating his time so far. Monday to Friday, eight to five, he was a warehouse operative who did various jobs throughout the business. One day he’d be unloading a container, the next he’d be picking stock ready for dispatch by a variety of couriers. Sometimes there would be a maintenance job that required some attention; fix a door, paint a corridor, move an office. There was always something to be doing. That was how Dom liked it. Busy in the daytime hours.
Once work had finished, that’s when life outside was the most difficult.
He was trying his best to make the most of his freedom, but he’d discovered something about himself. He got bored easily. Too easily.
The outside world wasn’t stimulating enough. Not when he had to create his own entertainment. At five o’clock, when the end of day signal sounded, Dom would take himself off to the in-house gym and work out. There was a room tucked away at the corner of the warehouse where all employees could use the facilities freely. It was a perk of the job and another thing he could do to pass the time.
The gym itself was well equipped, with a selection of top of the range cardio machines, weight machines, and dumbbells ranging from five kilos right up to fifty kilos. The majority of the kit was free weight, multiple benches and racks, each with their own Olympic bars and weight discs.
Initially, it seemed like an odd addition for a machinery importer, but it all became clear when Dom learned that Tommy McQuillan owned a nightclub and a pub, and an official door staff business which supplied bouncers to many of the nightclubs in and around the Bristol area. A good proportion of the bouncers already worked for Mach Tech, so it made sense for them to work and train in the same building.
Dom thought that he might do some ‘bouncing’ if the opportunity arose and was already building a rapport with a few of his colleagues.
While it was good for his health and social life, Dom was still at a loose end from six thirty most days. He would visit the local supermarket every other day and stock up on whatever bargains he could find, determined to save some money to be able to pay Bob back for all his efforts.
Bob was also slotted into the evening routine with either a phone call or a visit, but even that wasn’t stimulating enough.
Dom was buying books and DVDs from a local charity shop to fill the evening until he needed to sleep. It was not the life he had wanted.
He thought back to why he was never bored before he went away. The reason was blatantly obvious; he was into crime.
Not serious crime, just low-level stuff. Or what he called low-level. He used to deal some weed. He used to steal cars. He wasn’t the man in charge of his own destiny, but he would work for others. Crime filled the time, paid the bills, and held his interest. He also loved to drive. A car was a pipe dream at the moment. He would have to stay on foot for now. To buy a car would take some serious money and his mind was on paying his dues before he could pay for some wheels.
*
The day was drawing to a close. Dom was on the wind down, sweeping up his work area, expecting the five o’clock alarm any minute.
Richards walked over. “Do you want some overtime?” he asked.
“Yeah, no problem,” said Dom, ready for extra money.
“It’s nothing special. I’ve got an office to empty and I need an extra body.”
“Let’s do it.”
Richards led the way just as the alarm sounded. The pair walked up into the administration block and towards one of the sales offices. Other members of staff, mostly salesmen, hurried past in the opposite direction, heading for the exit.
Sure enough, there was an office next to the main sales room that was filled with excess equipment. Several desks were stacked up; a multitude of office chairs in various states of construction; an endless number of boxes of brochures and other marketing material, and some computer equipment, surplus to requirements.
They spent the next hour emptying the room, all bar two desks and two completely built office chairs, into a downstairs storeroom. Once finished, Richards offered to make Dom a drink, to which he agreed.
“How’s life on the outside?” Richards asked, passing over a mug of freshly mad
e coffee.
Dom always preferred tea but Richards had a fancy coffee machine in his office.
“Yeah, it’s ok.” It wasn’t a convincing answer.
“Just ok?”
“Alright, it’s boring,” Dom laughed.
“What did you like to do?”
“This and that – mostly driving and stuff.”
“I heard you used to be a hell of a driver.”
Dom’s eyes dropped, and he felt the pang of guilt and sadness.
“I did…” Dom let his words trail off.
“When was the last time you were behind the wheel of the car?” Richards asked with curious eyes.
“Do you know why I was in prison?” Dom returned.
Richards nodded. “You were part of an armed robbery crew – injuring a copper in the getaway.”
Dom shouldn’t have been surprised. Everyone knew; everyone local, anyway.
“Well, the last time I got out of a car I was driving, I was dragged out and cuffed on the floor – so a little over twelve years ago.”
“Do you miss it?”
Dom nodded, sadness etched onto his face.
“Come with me,” Richards said, as he walked from his office.
Dom followed the muscular man toward the car park. There was only one car remaining; a black BMW 3 series badged as an M sport model; Richards’ car.
“Here, take these.” Richards dangled a set of keys.
“And do what?” Dom asked, bemused.
“There’s a car park on both sides and two delivery bays on opposite ends. The tarmac is continuous – like a track.” A wry smile leaked onto the man’s face.
“Are you coming too?”
“Certainly.”
Dom snatched the keys out of the big man’s hand. He didn’t need asking twice.
Chapter 18
Sitting in a bedsit waiting for the phone to ring was how most of his days went lately. Vinnie was just a pawn in a very big and very dangerous game, but in his head, he was an integral part.
Boredom was overtaking commitment in his little world.
He took out his tobacco, rolling papers and filters, and started constructing smokes for his afternoon of boredom. He laid out five papers. In each, he tried to drop the exact same amount of fresh tobacco. Fresh and clumped together, he had to break apart the fibrous mess of sweet-smelling leaf. Meticulously, he rolled five almost identical cigarettes, the most productive thing he had done all day.
The bedsit was sparsely furnished. One sofa bed, one coffee table, one dresser, and a TV mounted on the wall. The floor was cheap laminate, peeling at the corners, with a large navy blue rug covering all kinds of sins beneath. All his clothes were stacked into plastic storage boxes in the only cupboard. It wasn’t a mansion but it was clean, tidy and just enough for him. It was also all he could afford.
The Boss was not known for his generosity.
Vinnie made some money on the side selling half-gram bags in nightclubs. Just enough to make a difference, not so much that other dealers would consider him competition worth removing from the equation.
Being part of the Boss’s fraternity did offer some protection from other low level criminal types, but the major players in the cocaine import/export business were something else, and they considered any association with such a gang as a concern; a concern that might escalate into a beating; a beating that might escalate into a body dump.
Vinnie hoped he was smarter than his peers.
The door almost exploded open. A fist rapidly pounded on the glass panel of the wooden frame.
Vinnie knew who it was before he reached the door.
“There’s another shipment coming in,” the Boss announced at the door. No greeting of any kind, just straight to business.
“When?”
The Boss pushed his way into the room. Wade and Gibbo followed.
“A week or so. I’ll get the actual time and date later today or tomorrow. I need you to run some of my gear to a dealer in Brum. He’ll pay top buck for my shit and I need the cash. I might need some spending money.”
The tiny room became claustrophobic, with the three men standing around the diminutive Vinnie.
“Sure. Whatever you need.”
Vinnie was dependable. That’s why the Boss used him.
“I’ll make sure you get a cut if you do the job well.” The Boss beamed his most benevolent smile.
It was fake, and Vinnie knew it.
“Thank you.” Vinnie smiled back. “What size is the shipment?”
The grin seemed to almost envelope the Boss’s oversized head.
“Two tonnes, maybe.”
There was a pause of exasperation.
“Two tonnes?”
“Yeah. Two whole metric tonnes of pure cocaine with a street value up to three hundred and fifty million pounds.”
There were three hundred and fifty million questions racing through Vinnie’s mind. This was serious crime. This was not a night in jail, a slap on the wrist and a suspended sentence kind of crime. This was a languishing at Her Majesty’s pleasure from the rest of your natural life kind of crime.
Among the firing synapses conjuring more questions than answers, a question fell from his lips.
“How can you buy so much cocaine?” Vinnie spluttered.
“Who said anything about buying it?” The grin had developed into a malevolent sneer.
This was a step up, and stepping on toes at the same time. This couldn’t possibly end well.
Vinnie swallowed hard. He was in too deep.
Chapter 19
Dom approached the car with some trepidation. He wasn’t sure if he knew how to drive. It had been so long. Perhaps he wouldn’t have the edge he used to have, or the basic skills to drive.
“I feel really nervous. Like a learner,” Dom uttered. He was half expecting Richards to say it wasn’t a good idea and to snatch the keys back.
“It’s like riding a bike, you never forget,” Richards reassured him as he fastened his seatbelt.
There was a moment of silence. A moment of seat adjustment, mirror adjustment, courage adjustment. The key slid into the ignition. First click – nothing. Second click – the dashboard lit up. Dom took a breath. Third click.
The engine fired first time. It let out a low, malevolent growl.
Pressure on the clutch; the six-speed gear box slid into first gear. Hand brake released. The car lurched forward and the dashboard lit up as the engine stalled.
“Don’t worry about it. Take your time,” Richards whispered.
Dom turned the key again. The engine throbbed back into life once more. This time, after selecting first, he eased more onto the accelerator. The low growl pitched high as the revs engaged the engine. The car pulled away.
“Just do a few laps of the car park. There’s nothing to hit.”
Dom nodded. He could feel the power wanting to be released but he held back. Casually, he notched the car through the gears. It was like he hadn’t had a twelve-year hiatus. Driving was something that came naturally to him.
After three laps of the building, Richards made a suggestion. “How fast do you think you could get the car up to?”
“What’s the top speed?” Dom asked.
“A hundred and fifty-five. Limited.” It was the custom with most high-performance road vehicles.
“I won’t get that in the car park.”
“Have a go.”
Dom needed no encouragement even though he knew there was not enough tarmac to get a vehicle that powerful near its top speed.
“I’m sorry if I break your car,”
“Just don’t kill us.” Richards laughed. “How about some music?”
Without even waiting for a reply, the big man tapped the radio on and pulled a phone from his jacket. The Chemical Brothers’ Galvanize blasted out of the quad-speaker system.
The repeated lyric Don’t Hold Back became the mantra as the ethnic sample all but drowned out the thrum of the high powered en
gine.
Dom gunned the engine. The car twitched, traction control fighting against the sideways motion. The rev counter flickered, touching the red-line, before the gear change saved the engine from itself.
The faster the laps, the more relaxed Dom became.
The day had been a balmy Indian summer day. The sun was already making a descent although it was still bright and warm. Only when the car was hitting ninety miles an hour did Dom appreciate the glory of the weather.
He noticed a patch of water at the corner of the building. There hadn’t been any rain but one of the technicians had been testing a pressure washer. The water reflected the dull orange glow of the hazy evening sky.
Dom changed down to give himself maximum power and aimed the car toward the patch. Though the turn was a right hand bend, he snapped the wheel hard left.
“What the fuck?” Richards yelled. It was the first time he’d reacted to anything the driver had done.
“Relax.” Dom was almost serene.
Effortlessly, the car drifted around the corner. Dom could drive a car as fast sideways as he could forward. Twelve years of imprisonment evaporated on a serotonin-fuelled adrenalin ride.
Dom was home.
Really home.
Chapter 20
The elation had spawned a grin that couldn’t be removed. Dom felt his mojo, and his mojo was alive and revving. His mind raced with thoughts of future car excitement, hoping for another play at the amusement park, which was the works car park, and his new favourite ride, Richards’ M3.
For the first time since walking out of prison, Dom felt truly happy. He had a place in the outside world, and that place was firmly in the driver’s seat of a high performance car. Now there was purpose. Now there was a goal. He wanted his own car again and he would do everything he could to obtain one.
Such was the euphoria flowing in his system that he dropped into the local on the way home.
A glass of dark fruit cider in the beer garden on such a glorious evening was definitely the correct choice.
Dom perched on the end of a picnic bench, a newspaper laid out before him, in the corner of the Falcon’ beer garden. It was the perfect end to an almost perfect day.
Cog in the Machine Page 6