‘What the fuck’s going on now, Billy?’ says Danny.
‘That slag Spud must’ve smelt something,’ I say. ‘Reckon he’s used the silly little cunt as insurance or something.’
‘He’s gotta fucking go,’ says Frankie, cocking back the trigger on his tool.
‘Leave it out, boys,’ I say. ‘He’s only a fucking baby. And he’s like family to me.’
‘More like family than us, is he?’ sneers Stevie.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I say. ‘It’s just that, well, he ain’t a bad kid. Been having it right fucking hard.’
‘Yeah, well we all know about having it fucking hard, Billy,’ says Frankie.
‘Fucking right,’ says Danny. ‘And if we let him go, the minute Spud claims hold of him, he’ll lollar us all up.’
‘Right, just listen to what I’ve got to say,’ I tell them, realising it’s going to be an uphill struggle all the way. ‘How long we been together?’
Seconds pass but there ain’t no reply. They’re all just standing there staring at me, so I carry on regardless. ‘Have I ever let any of you down? No, fucking right I ain’t. Always been there. Fucking hell! Come hell or high water. That’s why you call me the Cinzano man, ain’t it? Anytime, anyplace, any-fucking-where.’
But my spiel ain’t working, I can see that. They’re all still standing there, mouths shut and brains closed. So I field my best play. ‘Look, I’ll guarantee the kid will stay schtummo,’ I tell them. ‘I’ll send him away on a little holiday. Go see his relatives, it’ll be sweet. C’mon fellas, give the kid a squeeze.’ After playing my best shot, I run a cold grey stare over each and every one of them, devouring every inch of the their ugly, bitter twisted faces as I do so, in a search for just one tiny ounce of compassion. But there ain’t none. Then Danny speaks.
‘All right, you got it, Billy. But if we hear one fucking word out on the street, he goes.’
‘Sweet, fucking sweet!’ I yell, punching the air. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll scare the life out of the little fucker, he won’t know what’s hit him.’
Turning back to face the lorry I tell Shakesy, ‘Now, I’m gonna open the door and you can come out.’
‘OK,’ he shouts, as I gently ease open the door to find the kid leaping straight into my arms and crying like a baby. So what am I going to do, beat the shit out of him? I feel like crying myself. Fancy getting himself into this mess. But what the fuck can I say, I’ve been there and done it all a million times myself.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ I tell him, squeezing him tight in the first cuddle he’s probably had in five years.
BANG! is all I hear, as without warning Danny steps forward and puts a single bullet in the back of the kid’s head, just like that. No fuss. Matter of fact. And the kid simply drops to the floor like a stone and lays there, brown bread in a pool of red, leaving me cuddling an empty space.
‘Like I said,’ says Danny, stuffing his gun back in its holster. ‘The little fucker would’ve come his load once Spud got hold of him.’
After standing, thunderbolt-shocked and gutted for about thirty seconds I start to walk away as if sleepwalking through a bad nightmare.
‘Fucking great!’ I shout at the three of them, without even realising what I’m saying. ‘We’re killing fucking kids now, are we?’
‘Your attitude fucking stinks,’ screams Danny at me, but I’m oblivious to them and just carrying on walking, and with my subconscious telling me I don’t even want to look at any of these fucking child-killing scumbags.
‘Don’t stink as much as this,’ I shout back without turning my head. ‘I’m out, you can count me out.’
‘Don’t you walk away from me, you cunt,’ growls Danny, but I’m already half out of the door and on my way to my motor.
‘Let him go,’ I hear Frankie say.
‘Yeah, let him go and cry and rub his fucking pussy like the bitch he is,’ shouts out Stevie. And with those words ringing in my ears I climb into my motor and drive off.
THREE DAYS AND I ain’t hardly slept a wink, having been holed up in my Docklands flat sniffing too much gear, drinking too much booze, zombied out on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling and crying. What a pitiful cunt I am. A grown-up gangster blubbering away like a wet behind the ears nancy boy. I blame the faggotry in me bubbling to the surface like a badly-infected boil. I ain’t in denial, I know it’s there. But I despise it, especially because its making me feel as if I’m about to explode, what with the pain I’ve got fermenting inside. There don’t seem to be any sense to any of this anymore, if ever there was. And to cap it all Danny’s getting more unstable by the minute. I just know nothing good’s going to come out of him killing Shakesy. And now I’ve had time to think about it, things have been building to a head between me and him since he topped my pal Jewish Dave. And what with me walking away from the killing the other day I’ve got a feeling my own days are numbered. It’s a terrifying position to be in, knowing every meet I go on now could be my last. Besides, there’s still more storm clouds on the horizon in the shape of Woodsy, the nutty gangster whose missus, Jennifer, Danny was banging while he was in the boob. Today’s the day he’s out on home leave, and my firm’s on their way round to pick me up before going round his old girl’s house to plot him up and top him. And it ain’t even my fucking grief. Every last bit of it is down to Danny’s dangling bollocks. I would dearly love to go on the missing but I’ve still got a large amount of dough due me, so I’ll have to hang on in there. But I’ll tell you this for nothing. Once I’ve picked my share up I’m straight out the back door. I’ve been around too long and seen too many good people end up with one in the nut just because they overstayed their welcome. And ain’t no way that’s going to happen to me.
Just as I’m garnering further thoughts about my planned final exit from gangster-land, my mobile phone sparks into life. Its shrill tone stiffens my body like a board, almost sending me into cardiac arrest. But knowing I’ve got to keep things sweet with all those around me, I have no choice but to answer it.
‘Billy?’ says a crackly voice down the end of the line. ‘It’s me, Delroy!’ And straight away, it sets me to thinking that I’m really not up for this little prick at the moment.
‘I told you not to ring me, you fucking dinlow,’ I snap back at him, while wishing I could bite his head off with a single chomp.
‘I’m sorry but I had to. The shit’s hit the fan!’
‘What shit’s hit what fan?’
‘Me sister was taking me dog out this morning, and Big Spud—’
‘What have I told you about rockering on phones, you fucking mug!’ I shout at him, before lowering my voice and instructing him to, ‘Take five, get your act together and call me back on a landline.’ After which, I click off my mobile and toss it angrily to the floor, remembering how many times I’ve told that little prick that criminals can’t trust cunt-eyed mobile phones. But more to the fact than that, we can’t trust any types of phones. There’s more good people doing bird down to talking on the blower than I don’t know what. Talking on any blower is a bad habit to get into, full stop, and Delroy fucking knows that. But at the moment I have to say, I know my landline is sweet because I had a pal of mine sweep it with a bug detector a couple of weeks ago. But that don’t mean I’m happy about the situation, because now you can see what I’ve been saying all along. You get a small fish in a small pond like Delroy, wants to be a big fish in a big pond. But as soon as he thinks there’s a bit of grief his bottle starts whistling Dixie. Small-timers like him trying to hit the big time are the reason that those that have made it start getting nicked or topped. Plus, I don’t get no extra for babysitting clowns. But I will calm him down. Not for his sake, but mine. I’ve got one foot out of this shitpit of an existence already, and there’s no way I’m going to let this bottley little prick drag me back in over my head. My landline rings and I answer it.
‘Right, now listen to me, D,’ I tell him. ‘Before you start
rockering down the blower, take a deep breath, start from the beginning and just give me the facts. I don’t want any fucking conspiracy theories or proper names.’
‘Sorry, mate. I was panicking a bit, that’s all.’
‘Well, panicking is as pointless as praying. If you can’t handle the heat go back to nicking Curly fucking Wurlies from corner shops.’
‘I’ll be OK, Billy. Anyway. Me sister was out walking me dog, along the balcony, because Shakesy, the little fucker has gone on the missing again. So this bloke stopped her and asked her where the chavvie who normally walks the dog is, which is Shakesy. I mean you know he looks after it for me. She said she didn’t know. So the cunt picked up me dog and threw it over. Four fucking floors, man, squashed like a pancake. Then he beat me sister up. Punched her in the stomach and all that. It’s on top man, it’s on top. It was Big Spud, man. Billy, me dog’s fucking dead, man.’
‘Fuck the poxy dog,’ I say. ‘You can buy another fucking dog. They all look the fucking same anyway. And how do you know it was Big Spud?’
‘She described him to me, man. It was him. Why was he looking for Shakesy? I mean, he’s got fuck all to do with this, Billy.’
‘Fuck knows, although I did hear that Shakesy and his little firm burgled Spud Murphy’s slaughter a week or so ago. Maybe Big Spud was looking for him for that. It won’t have nothing to do with us, whatsoever. Believe me, Spud Murphy ain’t even probably told his boys he’s had a load of gear in.’
‘You reckon?’
‘One million per cent. Now what you’ve got to do is slip out the way for a few days, like I told you in the first place. I’m meeting up with my people later today and we’ll put some feelers out. But you’re a million miles away, believe me. You’ve put two and two together and come up with a load of paranoid bollocks. Anyways, how’s your sister, OK?’
‘Bit shook up. So, you reckon it’s nothing to worry about?’
‘Just told you. Now don’t ring me again, I fucking mean it. If you call me one more time, we’ll fall out. You’re behaving like a prick.’ And with that, I cut Delroy off before he can talk further.
Of course I lied. What did you want me to do, tell him that Danny’s topped his cousin, or nephew, or whatever the fuck he his? Fucking pointless, he ain’t Lazarus! Everything that happens from now on is about me, no one else. And besides, what he don’t know won’t hurt him. It’s what you do know that gets you killed in this game. So Spud’s on it straight away, obviously. What a slippery old slag! But what the fuck, I’ll be out of this in the next few days and they can all get on knocking each other over like ninepins. I can swallow all the properties I own, even the ones I’ve got with Danny. All told, I’ll have enough readies to start again anywhere I fucking like. I must admit though I’m pissed off that Big Spud punched Delroy’s sister up the ribs. She’s a good girl, got nothing whatsoever to with this, and I ain’t just saying that because I’ve been slipping her a goldfish for the last six moon. But first things first and I’ll put that on the back burner for now. And then when I meet up with my people I’ll use the Spud Murphy situation to take the dairy off of me for the moment. Buy myself some time and muddy the waters a little bit.
‘HE’S FUCKING TOAST,’ growls Danny from the passenger seat of our firm’s Mercedes, as I climb in feeling like more like an embalmed mummy than a human being. And that’s the only greeting I get as I slide shakily onto the backseat, shut the door and we pull away from the front of my apartment block with Stevie driving. It’s then that I notice that Frankie’s on the missing, which means the slippery cunt has wangled himself out another bit of nonsensical graft.
‘Who’s fucking toast?’ I say, wiping the sweat from my brow with a piece of soiled tissue paper left over from last night’s Chinese takeaway.
‘Denny Dalston,’ says Stevie. ‘Maddy done him for us last night. Called him out on a moody bit of graft over near the Ally Pally and blew the cunt’s fucking nut off as he sat in his motor listening to Tony Blackburn.’
‘Fitting end for the dopey cunt,’ I say. ‘And one less fucking maggot for us to worry about.’
‘You tooled up?’ says Stevie, eyeballing me in his rear-view mirror.
‘You said don’t bring a tool,’ I say, staring him back down.
‘Fucking right,’ says Danny, taking a quick shufti at me from over the top of his seat, before returning his gaze to the road ahead. ‘We got two yoggers already plotted up outside Woodsy’s old girl’s. We might be sitting around for a while, so we don’t want fuck all ironware in the motor.’
It’s this sort of talk that makes me even more paranoid. Because one minute you’re called out for a bit of graft, and the next thing your canister’s splattered all over the seat of a motor. Just like what happened to Denny Dalston last night. Well fuck them, ain’t no way I’m coming on any more meets and not being tooled up, and that’s why I’ve got a .22 snub-nosed revolver tucked into the pouch of the jockstrap I’m wearing. It might get a bit sweaty down there as the day wears on but it could turn out to be a lifesaver. And although what’s just been said by Danny and Stevie about not having yoggers in the motor is plausible, I ain’t taking no chances. The motor we’re in is an unmarked ex-Old Bill Rover, and as long as you pick them up fresh, they’re great for bits of graft where you may have to plot up in civvy street for a while. Look at it this way. There we are, three hairy-arsed gangsters with murder on our minds and more as likely as not, murder written all over our mooeys as well, plotted up outside a straight-goer’s house in east London, when all of a sudden some nose-ointment peeking through their lace curtains sees us, gets suspicious and calls Old Bill. Ten minutes later a panda car with a couple of dopey plod inside takes a cruise past, clocks the registration number and knows it’s a pig-mobile straight away. And even if they blow it through it on the radio, it comes back sweet. Just makes us look like three pigs grafting undercover.
On one of the first coups we had together as a firm we used an unmarked ex-Old Bill motor. Pulled over a Roller on the M1, put on the fluorescent jackets then strolled up to it. Driver wound down the window thinking he was going to get a bollocking for a traffic offence. Instead, he got a gun in his face and was told, ‘Your suitcase please, Mr Bruce, along with your keys and your mobile phone.’ Of course, he handed everything over straight away, and off we drove with a hundred grand’s worth of gold Krugerrands, and left him stuck there on the hard shoulder, looking and feeling like an absolute plum. And here we are now, parked up some hundred feet away from Woodsy’s old girl’s front door and trying to look low-key. The guns for the job are stuck out of sight in a privet hedge some ten feet away. It has to be quick. As soon as Woodsy shows, any two of us will leap from the motor, grab the guns, run at Woodsy and let him have it. Well, that’s the plan. Now all we’ve got to do is kill some time before we kill Woodsy, but to be truthful I still ain’t feeling too good. No sleep, too much booze and gear, and Shakesy’s murder is still tearing me to bits inside, and yet here I am sitting in the back seat as usual and staring at the heads of two murderous clowns I’m beginning to despise dearly. Another day in gangster paradise! And Danny’s starting to drive me up the fucking wall by keeping on replaying the same song on the car stereo. ‘Ain’t gonna bump no more with no big fat woman,’ by Joe Tex. He must have played it twenty times so far. And every time he rewinds it, he laughs, claps his hands and says, ‘Fucking proper record this.’ And I’m sitting here stewing and silently praying for Woodsy to show up sooner rather than later, just so as I can slip away and lose myself in another binge.
Just then a young bird in a short skirt, and whose legs are already showing the onset of varicose veins around her calves, trots past in a pair of down-at-heel trainers and pushing a stunning looking little half-caste kid in a pushchair.
‘Fucking disgrace,’ says Danny, nodding towards the bird. ‘Shitcunt’s having it with a nigger.’ But figure this out, he’s still nodding along to Joe Tex, a black American soul brother.
&nbs
p; ‘Country’s gone down the fucking pan,’ says Stevie. ‘What do you reckon, Billy?’
‘I don’t have a problem with it to be honest,’ I say.
‘You should move over to south London,’ says Danny. ‘Join the rest of the nigger lovers over there.’
‘I’m proud to be a nigger lover,’ I say, at which Danny snorts derisively.
‘I’d never fuck a jungle bunny,’ says Stevie. ‘They fucking stink. And I’ll tell you another thing. Niggers may rule the roost over there but they don’t over this side of the water.’
‘You should consider it an honour to be English,’ says Danny to me.
‘Don’t consider myself English,’ I say.
‘What the fuck are you then?’ he growls, and all of a sudden I’m feeling a lot better because I can see I’m starting to get his goat real bad. And I love getting his ignorant, pikey-bred, gold-toothed goat.
‘First and foremost I’m a Londoner. But if you’re asking about race, I’m a Celtic Frummer.’
‘What the fuck you talking about?’ he snarls back at me straight away.
‘Half Paddy, half Yiddo.’
‘Billy the Yid!’ chuckles Stevie, adding, ‘Didn’t know you had Jewboy in you.’
‘Enough to have been thrown in a fucking gas chamber,’ I say.
‘Yeah, well Hitler had the right idea with that,’ says Danny.
‘Oh yeah, and what was that?’ I say.
‘Kill the lot of yers. All Yids are fucking parasites.’
‘Kill the lot of them?’ I say. ‘What, women and kids as well?’
‘Yeah, why not. Fuck it, Yids and niggers they can all fucking go. Let’s face it, what have the niggers invented apart from AIDS and mugging. And as for the fucking Yids. Bunch of slippery big-nosed slags. As far as I’m concerned anyone that ain’t fucking white can go. I’d do it myself. Might feel bad about killing the first couple of chavvies, but after that it wouldn’t bother me a bit. Show all the fucking mongrels out there a bit of white power.’
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