by Robert White
My only thought was the nearest guy. Drop him, then worry about the next one. He came to grab my leather jacket with his ham of a fist, but I stepped away and he lost balance for a second. It was enough time for me to slip to the side and kick his legs from under him. It’s a technique used a lot in judo, but not many think about it in a brawl. It works a treat. The guy cried out in shock, did his best to break his fall with his hands, failed miserably and landed flat on his back on the flagstones. I added to his misery by penalty-kicking him in the jaw with my Timberlands.
Number two guard was the guy I’d already chopped in the throat and I could see in his eyes he didn’t fancy it now his pal was bleeding all over Whitworth Street West.
I was about to go in with my head when Joel barrelled out of the door and everything stopped.
He stood in the middle of the street in his pink fucking trousers and a black shirt and started to lay down the law to his minions.
I could barely stifle my laughter.
Then he turned to me.
“You,” he said. “I want a fucking word with you, at the bar…now.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Joel was a bull of a man, and was possibly the hairiest bloke I’d ever seen. I found it difficult to take my eyes from his Adam’s apple. It was bigger than your average walnut and it danced between his chin and the hirsute abyss of his chest as he spoke.
“Fuckin’ amateurs,” he bawled over the shitty Indie dirge the DJ had started to play.
“Who?” I said.
Joel turned his head, his eyes bulged, his face red with anger.
“Who? Those fuckin’ morons outside, that’s fuckin’ who.”
I shrugged. “Either you don’t know the right people or you don’t pay enough.”
He glared at me. “Really? So, who the fuck are you then?”
I met his eye “A professional.”
Joel laughed. “You got some bottle, I’ll say that…tell you what…Mr Fuckin Professional…you do a little job for me, and they’ll be more work for you. And I’ll pay the right money.”
“What are the terms exactly?”
He smiled to reveal expensive teeth. “Guy in here, right now, in this bar, owes me ten large for some sniff I provided for him and his celeb friends. He’s a slow payer, get me the ten and I’ll drop you five hundred.”
“I take twenty-five percent of the whole sum I recover.”
Joel almost spat out his Peroni. “You want two-and-a-half grand for a simple muscle job?”
“Who said I’d just get you ten?”
Joel raised his brows and pointed a stubby finger.
“Now I like the sound of that. Okay, clever boy…Freddy Garratt’s over there, table on the left, blonde bird with her tongue in his ear.”
Freddy was indeed lounging at a table with a very plastic blonde, a typical Altringham boy, the type who enjoyed slumming it with the working classes.
He was flying, on cloud ten. The poor sod was probably so stoned he’d forgotten he owed the most feared gangster in Manchester money in the first place.
I sat without being asked. His blonde lifted a silver case from her bag and started chopping a line out for herself, there and then on the table, oblivious of the violence in the air and fuck the consequences.
She looked up, saw me and said, “Sorry, did you want one, darling?”
Me? I am the epitome of polite viciousness. I ignore the entertainment and go straight for the money man.
“Mr Davies’s ten grand, Freddy? You got it or what?”
Freddy shrugged his shoulders, bent forward and devoured the line his girl had just chopped. She turned to him, considered complaining for a moment, thought better of it and started the process again. It seemed there was a constant supply of the Bolivian marching powder.
I was about to ensure her lover-boy paid for it.
Freddy wiped his nose, dabbed what remained of the line with a wet finger and rubbed the last of the drug on his gums.
“I told Davies, I’d pay at the end of the month. He knows I’m good for it.”
I promptly hated him even more than my failed TV star I’d just shoved in a cab.
Much to my annoyance, the prick wasn’t finished.
“Now,” he slurred. “I don’t know who you are, and quite frankly, I don’t give a fuck, so off you go and tell your boss that I’ll pay next week or something.”
He flicked the fingers of his left hand toward me as if brushing some fluff from his sleeve. “Go on, trot on, sonny.”
Freddy’s left hand interested me more than he knew.
I stood, smiled politely and said, “I’ll tell him that, Freddy.”
Joel had moved away to the far side of the bar and was in deep conversation with a young Chinese guy. He looked up, saw me and waved me over.
“So, where’s my ten, clever boy?” he says, all cocksure of himself.
“What car does Freddy drive? I said, unimpressed.
Joel shrugged. “Last I saw, was a Bentley Continental.”
I turned on my heels and slid out of the door.
The bouncer, who minutes earlier had been fancying his chances with me on Whitworth Street West, eyed me with suspicion.
I stepped in close and stuck fifty quid in his jacket pocket.
“You go in there and tell that fuckin’ hooray Henry, Freddy, that the alarm on his Bentley is annoying the neighbours, okay?”
He looked like a puzzled bullfrog. “Freddy? You mean the guy with the blonde bird?”
“That’s him, son.”
“Now?”
“You want the fifty or not?”
“Yeah.”
“Now, then.”
At that, he turned and disappeared into the club.
I scanned the street and sure enough a nice shiny black Continental was parked not fifty yards away.
Stepping across the road to my own very modest VW, I rooted in the boot until I found what I wanted, then sprinted to the Bentley and gave it a swift kick to the rear light cluster.
The car started to howl like a wounded banshee.
Sure enough, out came Freddy, all concerned for his pride and joy. He was so out of it, he was zig-zagging down the road, whilst trying to point his expensive remote at the British marque and shut off the alarm.
Finally, he made the driver’s door. The sap still hadn’t seen me standing at the boot.
I took three steps, grabbed his left wrist, tore a gold Rolex from it and quickly slipped it in my pocket. Then, lifting his hand upward, I twisted it into the position I needed. Freddy tried to focus on my face. He should have been looking at my hands.
I found the pair of tin snips in my jacket.
I don’t think Freddie even felt me cut off his little finger at the second knuckle.
Back inside the bar, Joel was holding court with faces from around the town. Never one for publicity, I caught his eye and waited for him to sidle over.
Once in a quiet corner, I pushed a plastic bag into his pocket.
“If you can’t get twenty large for that lot, you are in the wrong game, Davies… You got my five on you now?”
He pulled out the bag. Even Joel winced when he saw the claret pooled in the bottom. That said, he quickly recovered and closely inspected the watch.
“Nice,” he said, before eyeing the ring on Freddy’s severed digit. It was platinum, with three solitaires, twenty grand all day long. He gave me a knowing look and offered,
“I’ll give you three.”
I was losing patience.
“The Rolex is a Sky-Dweller, worth twenty-five grand alone. Give me the bag back, and I’ll give you your ten.”
Joel smirked, pushed the bag in one pocket and pulled out a wad of notes that would choke a horse from the other. He slowly peeled off my five grand, making a show of what a big hard, rich gangster he was.
You see, guys like Davies needed people like me, people who could make him look ruthless, people who would spread fear around th
e city.
The thought of Freddy sitting on the pavement outside, with a paramedic looking up and down the street for his finger, made Joel’s dick hard. That, and the sure knowledge that Freddy would now never dare tell a soul how or why he went on to acquire the nickname ‘Four-finger Fred.’
I pulled a twenty from the stash, wrote my untraceable number on it and gave it him back.
“Name’s Colletti,” I said. “Stephen Colletti.”
Davies pushed it in his pink trousers, and I went for a late dinner with his money.
Am I the same person now as I was then? I don’t call myself Colletti anymore, but that’s for you to decide.
I opened the door to my home, sweating from my run. The wound to my groin ached and made it difficult to even walk. My phone was flashing on the kitchen table.
Spiros Makris was missing.
Des Cogan’s Story:
When Rick’s call came, I was just about to sit down to my dinner. This consisted of a twelve-inch hot and spicy pizza, a portion of garlic dough balls, large chips with garlic and chilli sauce, and four cans of Guinness extra fuckin’ cold. Now some would say this was a most unhealthy meal, and that, as I was spending a not inconsiderable amount on my gym membership, also counter-productive.
And I would retort, that you don’t have to sleep with a twenty-two-year-old stripper that arrives at your flat at four every morning after work as lively as a kitten on ketamine. I was eating like a horse and getting thinner by the day.
Anyway, apparently Spiros Makris, the infamous Greek forger, had done a runner and Rick was not a happy bunny. He wanted to meet, go to the guy’s gaff in Hale, and have a snoop about.
Makris was Rick’s contact. I’d never met the guy, but my mate thought highly of him and that was enough for me.
Apparently, on the face of it the Makris family were importers of olive oil, yet I knew Spiros had provided Rick with a new identity in his early days in Manchester. I was also aware that he had supplied us with passports and weapons for our jaunt to Gibraltar via Puerto Banus.
As a result, Stephan Goldsmith had paid Spiros a visit for his trouble, beat him within an inch of his life, and shot his little girl Maria.
Rick, felt he owed the Makris family a debt. The younger brother had called and asked for help. It was a no-brainer, pal.
I ran down the steps from my apartment stuffing pizza in my gob. Rick wound down the window of his Aston.
“Don’t think for one fucking second you are getting in here with that.”
I stood on the pavement and pushed the last of the slice in my mouth.
“You’re getting very tetchy and judgemental since you’ve been shot, pal,” I said, doing my best not to spit tomato sauce on his swanky motor.
He handed me a wet-wipe out of the car window.
“Hands and mouth,” he said with a sarcastic smile.
Like a toddler, I did as I was told. “Yer a wee fuckin’ shite, I’ll say that.” I stuck my head through the open window. “Am I clean enough to enter, sir?”
Rick rolled his eyes. “Get in, numb nuts.”
I sat, and pulled on my seatbelt. “You want to fill me in before we get there?”
Rick turned down the corners of his mouth, set the Aston in gear and hit the gas.
“You know about Goldsmith and the little girl?”
“I do.”
“Well, I met with Spiros and his brother Kostas, just before we left for Belfast to slot O’Donnell. We owed him money for the weapons he’d provided for Gib, and I felt the need to go see him and give my condolences, yeah?”
I nodded.
“Well, he didn’t want Joel’s 911 as part of the deal, hence it languishes in the lock-up. His price was Goldsmith.”
“But Goldsmith was already dead, he topped himself in jail.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“So?”
“So, Kostas the younger one, he’s an angry man. He says he wants absolute proof that Goldsmith is dead. Prove it, and we are square; one document for the price of the car. So, when we did the last weapons deal, just before the Maxi fuck up, I gave Kostas something to put his brother’s mind at ease.”
“Something?”
“Stephan Goldsmith’s death certificate.”
“And where might you have obtained this document?”
“Never mind that. Kostas says, ever since he gave his brother the certificate, he’s been like a man possessed, missing for days at a time. This time, it’s been over two weeks.”
“So, you think he’s been checking on the authenticity of the certificate?”
“Would figure.”
“Mm…I’ll ask you again, where’d you get the documents?”
“A friend.”
“You don’t have friends.”
“Well, this acquaintance of mine, works in Manchester Register Office, and has a weakness for Victoria’s Secret underwear.”
“What’s his name?”
“Very funny, Des…She is called Amanda, and is always very eager to help.”
“I’ll fuckin’ bet she is…Does our Lauren know anything about the sweet Amanda?”
“It was before Lauren.”
I couldn’t hide the shock on my face.
“Oh, I see…before...So you two have finally got it together?”
“Shut the fuck up, Des.”
The conversation was over.
We pulled up outside the Makris home, well, as far as the electric gates. I mean, these were not just gates, they wouldn’t have looked out of place outside Hampden Park, eh?
I stepped out of the Bond-mobile, but couldn’t see much of the gaff as it was surrounded by a high wall. Mature trees, swayed above my head.
The place stank of money.
Rick was out beside me and pressed the intercom to the right of the impressive wrought iron monsters.
“This is all new,” he murmured, half to himself. “Always used to just drive in.”
I figured, if I’d had my wee girl shot in front of me, I’d be moving out, not installing a big fuck-off cage at the front of my house.
Anyway, as if my magic, a guy appears, he’s a big fucker, with a look of Desperate Dan about him. He sticks his face through the bars and asks us, none too politely, who we are.
I’d already clocked two CCTV cameras above us hidden in the trees. They were both PTZ’s (Pan, Tilt and Zoom.) If someone was watching the screens, they knew exactly who we were. Nonetheless we went with the flow, and after two or three stupid questions, we were back in the Aston, through the monstrous gates, and crunching over the marble chippings to the house.
“Bit like Joel Davies’s old gaff,” I commented.
“I hope we get a better welcome than our last visit to that house,” Rick snorted.
I couldn’t have agreed more, “Jesus, you’re right there, mate.”
I remembered that little soiree. I was covered in plaster dust and deaf from automatic gunfire, before I’d left the kitchen. It had been the setting for Lauren’s first kill, and I remembered her tears. Stephan Goldsmith had escaped that night. It was as if he’d been bulletproof. To think, had we managed to kill him in that battle, we wouldn’t be here, the scene of his horrific crime against the Makris family.
The place was a 1940’s Accrington brick-built affair, all big bay windows and heavy drapes. An impressive arched entrance door was half open. Standing in it, framed by the yellow of the hallway lights, was a shaven-headed guy. He was only my height, but a real gripper.
“Kostas Makris,” explained Rick as he killed the engine. “The younger brother, the Mr Angry I told you about.”
“Ah,” I said. “Any chance of a wee smoke before we go in? I’ve just had my tea.”
Rick thumbed a remote, and the Aston responded with a flash of its indicators and a satisfying bleep.
“No, you fuckin’ can’t…” He turned and acknowledged the big bloke at the door. “Kostas!”
The guy just jutted his chin in
acknowledgement of our presence and walked inside. I looked to Rick for confirmation that we should follow.
He spoke through his teeth, which was never a good sign. “Come on then, look sharp…and don’t fucking touch anything.”
Rick Fuller’s Story:
Kostas marched us along the hallway of the family home.
On my last visit, the whole house had been a cacophony of noise, smells and clutter. Yet as my John Lobb brogues rattled along the pristine mosaic floor to the stairs, all I could smell was bleach.
I recalled feeling almost jealous of the untidiness of the place, and the genuine comfort Spiros enjoyed, sitting alongside such chaos. To me, that night, his world had been strangely desirable.
I had delivered Joel’s old 911, as part payment for the weapons that Spiros would provide for the Puerto Banus job, and entered his bombsite of a study in awe. How the man could ever find anything in such pandemonium, was beyond me.
Now, however, everything was in order.
I turned to Kostas. “You tidied the place?”
He motioned to the desk. “We were looking for the envelope you gave to me.”
I nodded.
“I gave it to Spiros,” said Kostas. “That very night. Even though I knew it would be about that animal Goldsmith, I did not look inside. My brother took the envelope from me, and never revealed its contents. I thought that if we found that envelope, or what was inside, it may lead us to him.”
Des chipped in. “So, it’s not here then, pal?”
Kostas shook his head. “No…but there is something else.”
“Like what?” I asked.
He looked at us both in turn. “We need to talk outside. “
Kostas led us out to the gravel drive. Even in the warm evening air, with the birds giving it their all above us, he looked about him, nervous and on edge. He pushed his hands into his jeans and began.
“From the first day Spiros have the envelope, his wife Maria, she tell me, he is like an insane person. He disappear for one, two, sometimes three days at a time. He is so crazy, Maria come to my house and ask for help.”