‘Er, yeah. He wanted to know why I’d been at the funeral . . . He was as surprised as you were that I was there. And so I, er, told him the same reason. That I was there because of my dad. And because I’d hoped to be able to talk to him about Jack too.’
‘And what did he say to that?’
‘That I wasn’t welcome, even if his dad and mine had been at school.’
‘And about Jack?’
The further Frankie could distance himself from Dougie right now, the better. Easy enough too, where Dougie’s attitude to Jack was concerned. He just had to tell Listerman the truth.
‘He said Jack was a coward and that Jack claiming he couldn’t remember how he’d got covered in Susan Tilley’s blood was never going to be good enough for him.’ Frankie felt his cheeks burning even as he remembered Hamilton’s words. ‘He said that one day, once Jack wasn’t so close under Tommy’s protection, he was going to get a hold of him and get to the truth.’
‘And that’s a quote?’ Listerman’s pencil hovered over his pad.
‘Yeah. Verbatim. That’s what the wanker said.’
A smile played at the corner of Listerman’s lips. ‘Sounds like he fucked you off good and proper, eh?’ he said.
Frankie could feel the sweat prickling on his brow. ‘I was in there less than five minutes,’ he said. ‘Then he had his boys rough me up a bit and throw me out the back. They told me to get the fuck away from there while I still could.’
Listerman was watching him again, unblinking. First Frankie’s face, then his clenched fists.
‘Here, see for yourself.’ Frankie unbuttoned his shirt and peeled it and his jacket back off his shoulder.
Listerman stared at the bruising for a couple of seconds, before finally nodding, satisfied. ‘You should get some arnica on that.’
Fastening his shirt back up, Frankie watched the money man’s bony shoulders relax. He plucked another peanut from the packet and flipped it up into his mouth.
‘So you and little Dougie are still not exactly what we might call friends. And probably for the best, eh?’ he said, crunching down. ‘Because I know you still don’t think you work for Tommy, officially, in spite of the . . . favours you’ve paid him back for these last two years.’ He tipped the dust from the now empty packet into the palm of his hand and tossed it back into his mouth. ‘But just because you don’t work for him officially doesn’t mean you get to work for anyone else . . . get it?’
‘I got it,’ Frankie said.
‘Good, because, trust me, son, it’s one of life’s great truisms, that people who end up working for more than one master generally end up getting ripped a-fucking-part . . .’
4
Frankie didn’t get a chance to catch up with Jack until he spotted him outside the Ambassador Club Wednesday morning at eleven, just before it was due to open up.
‘What’s all this then? Teatime on the Titanic?’ he asked, grinning down at his kid brother, who was sunning himself on the pavement outside the club’s front doors on a stripy deckchair, with Slim doing likewise beside him, while it looked like Spartak and Xandra were slobbed out on the pavement just a little further along, half hidden from Frankie’s view with their backs to the brickwork.
‘Less of the Titanic, bruv,’ said Jack, peering up at him through his Ray-Bans. ‘Ain’t no icebergs round here. Just clear sailing as far as the eye can see. Or, rather, there would be if you’d just get your ugly mug out of my sun.’
‘Morning, boss,’ said Slim, ‘and may I offer you the finest of felicitations on this delightful summer morn.’
‘Indeed you may,’ said Frankie.
‘Mightily obliged.’ Slim smiled, doffing his wide-brimmed leather hat, his long legs and scuffed cowboy boots sticking out of the bottom of his worn poncho, leaving him looking even more than usual today like the ‘Outlaw Josie Fails’, as Xandra had taken to cheekily referring to him behind his back.
Xandra herself leant forward from where she was sitting cross-legged on Jack’s right, in an Oasis T-shirt, torn-off jeans and bare, paint-spattered feet. She’d already started decorating the flat upstairs by the time Frankie had got back here from the James Boys Gym the day before yesterday. Some extra money for her, and a long-overdue change for him. He’d been tiptoeing round that flat like it wasn’t really his for the last seven years, ever since the Old Man had been put away, acting every sodding day like he was coming back any minute – even though in reality Frankie still wasn’t any nearer to getting the poor bastard out of Brixton bloody nick.
‘You been hard at it then, have you?’ Frankie said.
‘Sweet Jesus, the work’s not going to do itself,’ she laughed, her Londonderry accent coming on strong now.
‘You’re an angel sent from heaven.’
‘Even better, a lodger come up from downstairs, and one who grew up in a family building and decorating firm, you lucky get.’
True. And much luckier than she’d been herself, growing up in that same family with bullying and beatings and worse, until she’d run away to London – where Frankie had found her a couple of years back sleeping on the street just a way down here from the club.
‘And just think,’ she said, ‘once we’ve got your little man crib not looking like such a boggin’ shitpit, we’ll soon have you back to courtin’, eh? Oh aye, just think of all those lucky ladies, eh? Now hadn’t they just better watch out?’
Lucky ladies. Chance would be a fine thing. And not just lucky ladies either. Any ladies would do. Because Frankie hadn’t really had much of either of late, had he? The nearest he’d got to courtin’ these last six months had been an answerphone message from Isabella a few weeks ago, saying she might be coming over to London some time soon. But, even then, when he’d tried calling her back at the restaurant in Mallorca where he’d met her last year, he’d been told she was back in Italy visiting her parents, and he hadn’t heard a word from her since.
But probably just as well, though, eh? Because what with the tournament coming up, he’d hardly got time for himself, let alone anyone else. Added to which was Dougie Hamilton and whatever shitstorm he was currently stirring up.
Xandra flashed him a grin. ‘So what do you think?’ She leant back to give Frankie a full view of Spartak. ‘Apparently, it’s all the rage in the Crimea this time of year,’ she chuckled.
The six-and-a-half-foot slab of Russian ex-military operative slumped beside her was wearing only a stained white singlet and matching underpants. His normally strictly vertical and lethally spiked bleached mohawk was flopping down listlessly over the right side of his otherwise shaved head.
‘What the hell happened to him?’ Frankie said.
Spartak didn’t even look like he was awake, but somehow he still heard.
‘Damned Georgians,’ he growled.
‘Georgians?’
‘Cheating Georgians,’ he growled even louder, still not opening his eyes.
Ah, so he’d been gambling again. A Georgian flat round the corner ran a notorious Tuesday night game. High stakes. Free drinks. A lethal combination.
‘And, look, he’s lost his pants,’ Xandra said. ‘Well, not his actual pants. Not in the British sense of the word. But as in his trousers, you know, like the Yanks would say.’
‘Damned Yanks,’ Spartak muttered.
Xandra put her arm round him, or as far round his wardrobe-sized torso as it would go, which wasn’t really very far at all. ‘There, there, diddums,’ she soothed. ‘Nothing’s ever quite as bad as it seems. He’s still drunk,’ she told Frankie. ‘What he really needs is his bed.’
‘I’ll go get the car round in a bit and give him a lift,’ Frankie said. Yet another thing to add to his list.
‘So where’ve you been, looking so dapper?’ Jack asked.
Frankie was in a suit yet again, a slick of sweat down his back, itching to change into a pair of shorts and get himself a taste of the good life like these bastards here. But running this tournament was like trying to tame a w
ildfire. The second he got one bit under control, another flame sprang up. He’d had back-to-back meetings yesterday, and already today he’d been in with the council for yet another health and safety chat, and then in with his insurance broker too, to make sure everything was properly covered.
‘Over on Beak Street seeing Dickie Bird,’ he said.
‘Christ, I hope you didn’t get dressed up for him,’ Jack said with a grin.
Frankie smiled too, because Dickie was hardly one for smart dressing now, was he? He spent most of his life down in the basement studio of his sex shop round the corner, wearing little more than an SLR camera round his neck. He did a bit of non-blue work too, though, just to make ends meet, what with there being so much piracy these days in the throbbing world of porn, and he’d done Frankie a deal on design and distribution for pub flyers for the tournament.
Tickets had been selling well anyhow, through the various professional billiards and snooker associations who’d come on board to support, but Frankie was keen to get word of mouth out locally too. To give this tournament a proper London feel to it. To which, they’d deliberately held back 10 per cent of tickets, which they now of course needed to shift.
‘Nah, I had a bunch of other stuff to do before that,’ he told Jack. ‘So how was Brighton? Hope you didn’t bring back any crabs?’
‘Haha. No. Just a stick of rock. I’ve left it on the bar inside.’
A car slid by, that Alanis Morissette song playing out the window.
‘Ironic,’ Frankie said.
Jack scrunched up his face. ‘You what?’
‘Never mind. How about that business course you went down there for? Any good?’
‘Surprisingly, yeah. P&L? VAT, mate? I’m all over that shit from here on in.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been paying attention.’ Frankie smiled. Not what he’d been expecting at all.
‘Yeah, well, maybe it’s about time I started making up for all them classes I mitched off at school, eh?’
‘Good on you,’ Frankie said, meaning it.
‘And what about you? You been keeping yourself busy?’ Jack asked.
‘Yeah, or this tournament has, at least.’
Jack nodded. ‘And Xandra says you’re doing up our flat.’
Our . . . Well, that was the first time Jack had called it that in a while. In fact, the last thing he’d said about it at all, as far as Frankie could remember, was on New Year’s Eve on the back of half a bottle of Scotch they’d guzzled, when he’d refused to crash over, slurring on his way out the door, No chance. I don’t know how the hell you can stand it up there. It reminds me way too much of all that . . . Meaning their parents’ divorce . . . their mum’s disappearance . . . the Old Man’s arrest . . . all the greatest hits of their youth.
‘Yeah,’ Frankie said, ‘I’ve decided it’s about time I put my own mark on the place.’ The avocado bathroom suite, the flock wallpaper . . . Christ, he couldn’t wait for it all to be gone.
‘Well, not too much, I hope. I mean, it is still the Old Man’s for when he gets out . . . and it’s my childhood too, right? I mean, I’ve still got a whole bunch of stuff up there . . . history . . .’
History? ‘If you mean all your stinking old trainers and that bag of Razzle mags you’ve got stashed under the bunk bed, then you’re welcome to them.’
Xandra snorted with laughter as Jack’s cheeks burned red.
‘JoJo said he called you upstairs,’ Jack said, changing the subject.
He . . . Listerman . . .
‘Yeah,’ Frankie said, ‘he wanted a little chat.’
‘About what?’
‘This and that.’
‘Just shooting the breeze, then?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Not checking up on me?’ An edge to Jack’s voice here. And with good reason. Both Riley and Listerman knew full well what an unreliable caner he’d been in the past. Meaning he was still very much on probation at the gym.
‘Nope. He just wanted to talk through where we’re up to on the Open. Your name didn’t even come up, bruv.’
‘Good . . .’ But Jack sounded far from convinced.
‘Other than to say that you were all set up for hosting the opening rounds over at yours,’ Frankie added. ‘Which you are, right?’
‘Yeah, of course. I’ve got Taffy’s boys coming down from NW10 to take down the rings on the eighth, and then Festive Al’s driving the tables and seating over from Clerkenwell once it’s clear.’ Jack pulled out a Filofax from his pocket and flipped through it. ‘Yeah, he’s bringing them round on a flatbed at nine a.m. on Wednesday the tenth, so should be set up in plenty of time.’
Frankie whistled, impressed. ‘Sounds like this little management course really has rubbed off on you.’
‘Nah, just taking after his big brother. A natural, eh?’ Xandra teased.
‘Apparently we really missed out not seeing those two new kids, the Irish lads,’ Jack said.
‘Yeah?’ Frankie regretted not staying around. But after that meeting, well, it had felt like the walls of the whole building had been moving in on him. Like that scene in Star Wars, where all the good guys had nearly got crushed.
Jack nodded. ‘JoJo reckons the seventeen-year-old’s a real find.’
‘Whereabouts in Ireland they from?’ Xandra asked.
‘Dublin.’
‘Pah,’ she grunted, flexing her muscles, her panther tattoo stretching out its claws on her bicep. ‘Now what you really need is good County Antrim farming stock like me.’
‘JoJo reckons he’s got it. The elder lad,’ Jack said.
‘For real?’ In all the time Frankie had known JoJo, he’d only said that about a few kids, Frankie being one of them.
‘Says we should maybe get The Topster round to take a look.’
‘Fair enough.’ Andy Topper wasn’t just a snooker agent. He specialized in the ‘Holy Trinity’, as he called them, them being snooker, boxing and darts. ‘I’ll get him to put in a call to JoJo and find out what’s what. But it’ll probably have to wait now until after the tourney’s done.’
The phone started to ring inside.
‘Not me,’ said Slim.
‘Ah, quit yer gurning, it’s your turn,’ said Xandra.
‘Heads or tails?’ Slim was already tossing a coin in the air.
‘Heads,’ said Xandra.
Slim caught it and slapped it down on the back of his hand. ‘Tails.’
‘Ah, bollocks, it’s time I got earning my crust anyway. Look, here come the lads, right on time.’ Rising, she nodded at Ash Crowther and Sea Breeze Strinati, who were walking down the pavement towards them, with their chess set and newspapers tucked under their arms, ready to take up their usual perch at the bar for the rest of the day. The other regulars wouldn’t be far behind.
‘Yup, I suppose we’d best get this show on the road.’ Slim got up, stretched and yawned. ‘So who’s for breakfast? I picked up some nice ripe beef tomatoes and Welsh Cheddar from Berwick Street market on the way over. Toasties all round?’
Frankie and Jack both nodded. Frankie then turned to Jack and said, ‘A quick question . . . you know, just on the back of Terence Hamilton having died.’
‘What?’
‘None of them have bothered you, have they? The Hamilton mob, I mean.’
‘No.’ A bit of a tremble in Jack’s face, mind, as he said it.
‘And I’m not saying they will, either, all right,’ Frankie said, ‘because you’re still under Tommy’s protection, but just if they do . . . you make sure you call me right a-bloody-way, OK?’
‘Sure.’
Frankie nodded. ‘Good. And, on another note, I’m heading over Brixton to see Dad later, if you fancy tagging along?’ The first thing he’d done after getting back from seeing Listerman was to get on the blower to wangle himself a visiting slot at Brixton nick to see the Old Man today, so he could get their story straight, in case Listerman got someone on the inside to check up on what Frankie had
said about why he’d gone to the funeral.
‘Nah, you’re all right,’ said Jack, looking relieved not to be talking about the Hamiltons any more. ‘I’m booked in to see him next week. I got to be getting back to the gym. I’ve got some membership drive ideas from that course I want to run by JoJo. Oh, but quick, before I go . . . Tiff asked me to get you to sign this.’
‘What?’
‘The entrance form for next year’s London marathon.’
Frankie smiled. A little bet they’d had last week while out running together. Who’d have thought it? What a difference a year made. Frankie rested the form on the table and signed it with the Old Man’s fountain pen that he’d taken to using in meetings.
‘And don’t forget,’ Jack said, ‘the loser pays for dinner at Quo Vadis.’
That posh place up on Dean Street. It would cost an arm and a leg.
‘Yeah, well, no worries there, eh?’ Frankie said. ‘At least not for me . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah, bruv, we’ll see . . .’
A little twinkle of competition in Jack’s eyes. Frankie liked that. Much better than the little red stoner roadmap that had patterned the whites of his eyes for the last few years until he’d got his act together.
‘Oi, Frankie.’ Xandra poked her head round the door. ‘It’s for you. Some girl. Sounded foreign. She wouldn’t give her name.’
Jack wolf-whistled. ‘Aye, aye. Anything you want to tell us, bruv?’ he teased.
Frankie tried to smile it off and look casual. But already his heart was beating faster. Because maybe it was Isabella? Yeah, it would be lovely to hear her voice. He followed Xandra inside, nodding at Ash Crowther and Sea Breeze Strinati, who’d already got their chessboard set up at the bar. A couple of other locals had crept in too while he’d been chatting to Jack. Stefano and Giuseppe, the waiters from Bar Italia, on table two continuing their never-ending series. The Man with No Name practising long shots on his own on table five. And Jewellery Sanj hunched over the fruit machine, alternating between punching buttons and cursing and sipping from his double vodka and Coke.
‘Yeah, hi?’ Frankie said, picking up the phone receiver at the bar.
The Break Page 5