‘You’re not a whale, so stop fucking blubbering!’ screams Danny, steaming back over to Dave and punching the granny out of him with both fists. The force of the attack knocks the chair over and Jewish Dave’s head hits the concrete floor with a dull thud.
‘Reckon he’s dead?’ laughs Frankie.
‘Fucking hope not,’ says Danny. ‘I don’t like cunts dying on me accidentally. Takes all the fucking fun out of it.’
‘Make you right,’ says Frankie, stamping down heavily on Jewish Dave’s chest before spitting on him.
‘Pooh, what the fuck’s that stink?’ says Stevie.
‘Fucking shit himself, ain’t he?’ says Frankie
‘What a fucking baby,’ says Stevie.
‘Anyone hungry?’ says Danny.
‘Yeah,’ says Stevie. ‘Let’s go for some Chinese.’
‘What about that slag?’ Frankie asks.
‘He don’t like Chinese,’ says Danny.
‘Shall we bring him back something else then?’ says Frankie.
‘Yeah,’ says Danny. ‘A packet of fucking Pampers.’
SPECIAL SPICY RIBS, shredded beef, sweet and sour prawn balls, curry sauce with noodles and special fried rice. All washed down with copious amounts of Bollinger and bullshit. Be it torture on the menu or celebrating a nice little earner, Danny, Stevie and Frankie always order the same stuff from the same place. Tony Yow’s Bamboo Garden, Basildon. It ain’t proper Chinese, of course, but they don’t know that.
What Tony Yow’s is, is a spit and sawdust, late-night chop suey house catering for the palates of the uneducated, who wouldn’t know real Chinese food if it crept up and bit them on their arses. The only time I ever go there is after the clubs have shut and I can’t get a drink anywhere else. For those of us that hurt people for a living and have pockets full of wedge, Tony fills the table teapots with sake. So we’ll sit there till six in the morning, getting hammered and talking bollocks. I’m less than fifteen minutes away from Jewish Dave now, and I’m sure I can swing it, if I only get there in time.
Having now finished their meal, Danny, Stevie and Frankie make their way back to the slaughter and down into the cellar.
‘Fuck me, he’s still here,’ says Stevie, chewing on a toothpick.
‘Is he still breathing?’ says Danny.
‘I’ll check,’ says Frankie, lighting a cigarette and giving Jewish Dave’s overturned body a kick. Jewish Dave gives out a slight groan.
‘Yeah, he’s still with us.’
With Danny looking on, Stevie and Frankie lift up Dave and set his chair back on all fours while outside I skid to a halt, jump from my car and leg it into the building.
‘Jesus, Frankie, you smoke like a fucking beagle,’ says Stevie.
‘Fucking things’ll kill ya,’ says Danny.
‘Nah,lights, these are. Low fucking tar content,’ says Frankie, blowing out a smoke ring which hovers in a halo over Dave’s head. Without a word Danny steps forward, puts a yogger in the centre of Dave’s face and blows a fucking hole in his head. I hear the bang just as I’m sliding down the ladder to come crashing to an undignified halt.
‘Fucking hell,’ says Danny. ‘Look who it ain’t.’
‘The Scarlet fucking Pimpernel,’ sneers Stevie. Frankie says nothing, just stubs out the remnants of his fag on the floor, then Danny speaks again.
‘I need you to get rid of that Jewboy slag,’ he says to me. ‘And clean this fucking mess up as well.’
‘What am I, the fucking caretaker?’ I shout back at him, slipping awkwardly on the blood that’s flowing from the back of Dave’s head.
‘Bad back, Billy?’ smirks Stevie, noticing the pain in my face as I climb to my feet.
‘Yeah,’ I snarl. ‘Got it bending over backwards trying to bail cunts out of trouble every five fucking minutes.’
And then they’re gone and here I am, just back from paradise and sitting alone in a cellar with a corpse turning cold. I don’t know whether to kick Dave in the head or cuddle him, the fucking meshuggener. Like all of us he was just trying to hit the big time. Problem being, he just got hit fucking big time. But this was totally pointless. I could have sorted it out and got the dough back. It would have all been sweet. I’m on the verge of breaking down, truthfully I am. I’m just not cut out for this, not killing mates. Surely you give a man his out, and if he takes it, you let him go. I don’t know how I’m ever going to face his missus and his chavvies again, especially once the whisper gets out. And the whisper always does. They say the dead don’t talk. Bollocks. With the forensics they’ve got nowadays, they come back from the grave to point their bony fingers at you an’ all.
It’s taken me a couple of hours slumped in a chair while staring at a spider spinning a web, to even start to come to terms with Dave’s demise. Can’t be nothing much worse than having to leave a friend without a final farewell. And so, after taking an eternal trek back to my motor I tear off into the night, stopping only the once, to pick up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from a piss-stinky off-licence run by a Turk with rank armpits, before heading for the sticks, driving recklessly down twisting roads trying to straighten out twisted thoughts. It’s all a nightmare blur of flashing images and winking road signs, but eventually I reach my destination deep in the heart of the countryside where I park up. It’s deserted and lonely, but at least the dark night outside my car speaks to me of respite from my demons. Switching on the radio I tune into the World Service and it carries me away to distant lands which is really where I should be right now. After necking a couple of downers, I settle down and proceed to drink myself unconscious in the front seat of my motor.
DAYLIGHT, AND I’M fucking freezing. Ain’t nothing like a night in a motor after polishing off half a bottle of bourbon to make a man feel like a fucking corpse. Wiping a small hole out of the condensation on the inside of my windscreen, I take a charlie hit, followed by a couple of swigs of breakfast booze before getting out to stretch my legs in the morning chill. Steadying myself with the door of my car I find myself in a forecourt made up of cobblestones littered with small mounds of dried and drying pig shit, whilst in the background looms the depressing backdrop of Tilbury, Essex. The unwashed, unshaved armpit of England. And the bigger the piss-hole the more patriotic the people who live in it. For some reason the knuckle-draggers who live in these shit provincial towns drape themselves in the flag of St George, who was in fact a Syrian from Palestine. And as for getting pissed and singing the national anthem. God Save the Queen ain’t a national fucking anthem. It’s a submissive paean to a Kraut granny, who lives it large on land stolen from British forebears. If anyone don’t need saving by God, it’s that old cunt and her horse-faced family. They’re cottrelled up to their fucking eyeballs. Trying not to get my shoes covered in pig shit I tread my way gingerly through the yard, just as a large truck of pigs pulls to a halt. Crammed in like sardines, these soon-to-be bacon sarnies stare mournfully out through wooden slats. One catches my eye and I look away, feeling sort of guilty I might be having it for breakfast tomorrow. The driver of the lorry pulls down the back flap and the pigs begin to spill out in a confused cacophony of grunts and squeals, hurried along by the occasional kick up their arses. It don’t seem right. Just because we eat them don’t give us the fucking right to abuse them. I seriously think about giving the driver a strong pull, but he’s only a carrot cruncher. Besides, I’ve got bigger rashers to fry.
The man I’ve come to meet is standing some fifty feet away, smoking a pipe and peering into a pigsty. He sees me coming but makes no move to welcome me.
‘Messy business, William,’ he says, in a plummy, public school accent while flashing me a sideways glance. ‘One might even go so far as to say that it was a little over the top.’
‘It shouldn’t have happened, Boris,’ I say. ‘I loved the man. Got there too fucking late.’
We shake hands perfunctorily, and I join him up against the fence of the pigsty.
‘How much?’ I ask.
/> ‘Oh I do hate talking dough, William, it’s so bloody vulgar. Let’s call it twenty grand, eh?’
‘Everything?’
‘Brains to bollocks. Toenails to teeth.’
‘Nice to see someone happy with their fucking lot, Boris. You collect!’
‘Of course. Usual place, I take it. By the way, I must ask, how do you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Have such a lovely tan and still manage to look like a man that’s seen a ghost?’
‘It’s called keeping the wrong company. Anyway, changing the subject, how come you just keep this one pig here, and spoil the fucking thing rotten. Fucking pet is it, or just remind you of the missus?’
‘Haw, haw. I wish my missus was this good looking, William. No, no. This is my Judas Pig.’
‘Come again?’
‘Judas Pig. Judas Iscariot, the toerag that grassed up the Son of God.’
‘Too early in the morning for me, Boris. I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re on about.’
‘Jesus H Christ, William, didn’t they teach you anything in approved school? Look, a pig is a clever animal, relatively speaking of course. Cleverer than a dog, certainly. Try throwing a stick for a pig and telling it go fetch. It’ll look at you as if to say, go fuck yourself. So, when the new little piggie-wiggies arrive, some of them get an inkling that this place doesn’t exactly bode well for their future. And if one of them panics they all start to panic. Absolute fucking nightmare. Enough shit and squealing to start a revolution. Extremely harrowing, dear boy, especially for an old softie like me. Still, there’s no room for sentiment in this business. But the thing is a pig will trust another pig. One pig can lead the others through the walkway and into the slaughter. This one for instance. The Judas Pig.’
‘So it gets to live another day?’
‘Till it can’t do the job anymore, then it’s end of,’ says Boris, making a slicing movement across his throat. ‘That’s life, William. No one here gets out alive.’
‘Tomorrow all right?’ I say, making a start back to my motor.
‘Right-o,’ I hear him say, before adding, ‘Oh and William, it’s rather ironic, don’t you think?’
‘What is?’
‘Him being Jewish and ending up inside a pork pie.’
‘Everyone a winner, Boris,’ I say under my breath as I climb back into my motor to take the lonely drive back home. Now all I want to do is get my head down and forget this ever happened but I know that ain’t how it’s going to be. But at least I’ll be driving home against the traffic, going the opposite way to all the little people wrapped up in their cotton wool lives. What the fuck do they know? Spending their whole existence peeping out from behind their privet-hedges, too fucking shit-scared to take even a single step outside their well-ordered little worlds. Twenty-five year mortgages and jobs for life. Fuck that! All a proper man needs to fall back on is the cheeks of his arse. I fucking hate straight-goers, more than I hate myself. What do they know about killing? Fuck all. So what can they know about living?
THE INSIDE OF my head is like a box of frogs wearing steelies while doing the Skinhead Moonstomp, but after a few near misses I’ve made it back to my apartment in one piece. And even just pulling into the underground car park offers me some semblance of tranquillity. After parking up and pulling out the remainder of the Jack Daniel’s I neck a couple of swigs and head for the lift, to find myself confronted by two mushes I’ve never seen before, causing me to pause instinctively. Old Bill? Nah, can’t be. These two turkeys are wearing vomit coloured cardigans. Old Bill dresses bad, but he don’t wear cardigans. He wears either snide Barbours or plastic sports jackets.
As I draw nearer they start to look more like a couple of nonce-cases out on the prowl. A closer inspection however, reveals them both to be holding a large book each and looking like they’ve never jacked off under their bed sheets. And what they got round their gregorys? Crucifixes? Fuck me, Christians! Should’ve guessed. Recruiting sergeants for old beardy-bollocks may think they’re infused with the holy spirit, but they sure as shit ain’t blessed with any dress sense. And what’s the score, these apartments are supposed to be exclusive. How the fuck can followers of a poverty stricken carpenter afford a luxury apartment next to Tower Bridge? Must have their fingers stuck in the collection plates, as well as up inside the choirboys’ arseholes.
But whatever it is they’re up to they’re doing it in the name of some masochistic prick, who whilst having had the good fortune to be born into a stable environment, still managed to get himself nailed to a plank of wood one lovely spring day for preaching sedition and claiming he was from outer space. Necking another couple of swigs of Jack as I reach the lift, the burn of Kentucky bourbon at the back of my throat calms me, and I nod faked respect in the direction of the Bible-bashers. The lift arrives and we all enter, with them moving to the rear and me remaining at the front, giving them the view of my back.
‘Where to?’ I growl, without turning a hair.
‘Top floor,’ they reply, almost in unison.
‘Next stop heaven, eh?’ I say, as the lift ascends and I watch the illuminated floor numbers pass.
‘You seem troubled, friend,’ purrs a voice behind me.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Lost my conscience and can’t find it anywhere.’
‘We’re holding something in our hands that can change your life. It’s got five letters and begins with a B. Can you guess what it is?’
‘The Beano?’
‘Do not mock, friend. For it is written that those who accept the Lord gain eternal life, while those that deny him are doomed to the fires of hell.’
‘But what a lovely, long, slippery slope to get there, eh!’
‘You’re dancing with the Devil, my friend.’
‘More like boogying with Beelzebub.’
‘That’s why Jesus died on the cross. For your sins.’
‘Well, we all have to make sacrifices.’
After what seems like an eternity the lift begins to slow down.
‘Glory be,’ I whisper, as it stops and the door slides open. After taking down a tight, difficult breath, I step out into the hallway.
‘Jesus loves you!’ calls out one of the Christians.
‘Bollocks!’ I shout back, as the lift door slides shut behind me and I turn the hallway corner for the short walk to my apartment, ruminating on what a fucking load of old bollocks religion is. The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity by hypocritical old cunts in sandals. Take my poor pal Jewish Dave. His religion wouldn’t let him eat bacon, but that didn’t stop him fucking untold pigs. And I got another pal, Rash, who’s a Muslim. Won’t touch a drop of booze, not until he gets to paradise, where apparently there’s rivers of wine. That’s probably why some of the dopey cunts blow themselves up, ‘cos they’re dying for a glass of Merlot. Oh yeah, I forgot about the seventy-two virgins. What they don’t tell you is they’re all seventy-year-old nuns, so unless they’ve also got plenty KY in the hereafter, it’s gonna be like fucking a camel with piles.
Opening then slamming my flat door shut behind me I flop straight down into a leather recliner then reach for a nearby bottle of pills. After necking four valeries too many I wash them down with some more Jack. It’s the only way I’m going to get any proper shut-eye. Another bad end to another bad day. Not for the first time do I feel overcome with fear about my future. About how I’m going to end up. In an unmarked alley, somewhere in the pits of the Smoke, with a bullet in the back of my fucking nut? Or like some of the other old-timers, lifed off without a shilling but still strolling the nick giving it the Harry Hard. Fuck that! Don’t want to end up no rebel without a pot to piss in. Although to be truthful, from where I’m slumped at the moment, don’t none of the future look that healthy. ‘Cos even the ones of us that do slip through the net seem to spend our last days crammed into horrible suits and with receding barnets dyed an improbable shade of chestnut brown, sitting smug behind ghost-written, pig-shit, point
less memoirs about the so called good old days, and so petrified to do our own villainy we end up putting yoggers into the hands of chavvies and geeing them up to do our dirty work. London villains! We sure as shit ain’t the Mafia, and even those cunts lapse into parody.
The pills and booze slowly begin to kick in, sucking me gently down into much-needed sleep. But still I can find no peace, only more treachery. More distant memories flood back to torment a broken heart that’s never mended. The only woman I ever loved. She was the colour of honey. I met her down the Cotton Club one night. No, not the one in Harlem, the one in Hackney. Slightly less salubrious, and Cab Calloway’s never played there. But it was always full of premier league east London pearlers lining up to be poached. And for a prospector like me it was the Klondike. Before I became a gangster no woman ever looked at me once, let alone twice. But properly attired, packing a gun and with bad dough to burn, I could stroll into the Cotton Club any night of the week flashing gangster style, and before I knew it, I’d be strolling back out with a bird on my arm as good-looking as any film star you care to mention. Then it’d be straight back to my Tower Bridge apartment to ply them with champagne and charlie, while dazzling them with tales of criminal derring-do. And so, giddy at the opulence of the surroundings, before they knew it they’d have their legs over the back of their shoulders and I’d be drug-fucking them silly for the next two days.
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